Truth Be Told
by garglyswoof
Summary: (Mainly) Klaroline ficlets/drabbles I write or post to procrastinate writing my main story.
1. Chapter 1

Klaus stepped out onto the balcony with a glass of scotch, sitting down and idly flipping through his phone before returning to his texts for the 300th time in the last half hour.

 _Caroline 1:30 a.m._

whatcha doing?

 _Caroline 1:32 a.m._

bartender is annoying

 _Caroline 1:32 a.m._

please come eat her

 _Klaus 1:33 a.m._

I believe your exact words before you left with Bonnie were 'don't do that creepy stalker thing' so i've found other entertainments for the evening

 _Caroline 1:34 a.m._

"other entertainments" really? you sure you dont wear a monocle?"

 _Caroline 1:37 a.m._

k well missed your chance to eat a person and me be totally cool with it. Have fun with your "other entertainments"

 _Caroline 1:45 a.m_

Klaus?

 _Klaus 1:50 a.m._

Sorry love, Kol stole my phone and barricaded himself in the upstairs bathroom.

 _Klaus 1:50 a.m._

To note, we no longer have an upstairs bathroom.

2:20 a.m. now, and Klaus' restlessness was past the point of irritation. His mobile screen was shattered, the result of pulling out his phone for the 301st time, positive he had felt a vibration. Kol was banished from the mansion with the requisite dagger threats and Klaus now had only his mind for company. He wondered if she was enjoying her night, picturing her laughing with Bonnie, captivating every man in the bar. Occupying himself for a few minutes imagining the different ways he would kill her various suitors, he ended up spending a good thirty seconds on the logistics of scalping. The idea had merit.

Klaus wasn't quite sure at what point Caroline had become a permanent fixture in his thoughts. As with all things involving time and proximity, it had been a subtle shift, surprise turning to anticipation, to craving, to need. Would this warm ache in his chest return to form if time and distance were applied in reverse?

For that matter, was love the same as an appreciation of beauty? For it felt the same, and he had appreciated that since the dawn of the age; art and dance and literature, aesthetic pleasures that calmed the beast in his skin when he most wished to crawl out of it. That stutter as the heart constricts, squeezing in with the pleasure of almost-pain until it releases, spreading across the limbs, flowing through the veins, spilling out of lips in a sigh.

It is the same, this feeling, when he considers her. He would think it simply an appreciation, if it wasn't in response to things that didn't quite fit in the spectrum of beauty. How else to explain the feeling arising when she actually had the audacity to make fun of him? Or when she stood up to him without backing down? Or how the hollowed-out feeling of shame twisted his gut the night of the battle in the city, when she looked at him with fear and disgust?

Whatever this was, it was not something he wished to lose anytime soon. Klaus checked his phone for the 302nd time, saw the shattered screen, roared and dashed the phone to pieces on the asphalt below.

On his way out the door, committed now to find her and eat whomever she was talking to, Bonnie included, he heard her voice.

"Bonnie! That bitch served me vervained vodka and smirked when I choked on it."

"Yeah, I know. But you KNOW Klaus will do anything you ask, so… "

Bonnie trailed off as Caroline made the exaggerated shushing noise of the super drunk, one finger to her lips.

"SHHHHHhhh He can HEAR you." Klaus felt his lips twitch as Caroline's voice dissolved into a combination hiccup giggle.

"Who says vampires (hic) can't get drunk? NOT ME!"

Bonnie wrapped her arm around Caroline's waist and tugged. Nothing. Blowing air out through her lips she stopped, repeated the noise for her own amusement.

"Hey Klaus? Caroline's just picking her feet up and down instead of walking now and I'm too drunk to - tooo druuuunk tooooo. too drunk to. two drunk two" Bonnie and Caroline were both laughing and following Bonnie's hand as she held up two fingers and waved them back and forth in front of her face.

Klaus gave a long-suffering sigh that felt foreign in its affection and sped to the two girls, picking up a squealing Caroline over one shoulder and offering a gallantly crooked elbow to Bonnie.

 _~The next morning~_

"He didn't tell you the best part! I performed your texts as a dramatic reading. It was a performance worthy of the Globe." Kol's grin was spread wide with his arms as he dipped into a curtain call bow, Caroline playing along with a snooty expression and golf clap while Bonnie rolled her eyes.

Klaus lifted his head from where he been pinching the bridge of his nose and snorted. "Ahh the same stage to grace us with "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Such quality work."

Kol pointed a finger at Klaus. "Exactly, you get it! Rebekah doesn't give you enough credit, I think the stick is far less up your ass than Elijah's."

A muscle in Klaus' jaw twitched and Caroline and Bonnie clamped their lips shut. Truly, no one was a better troll than Kol.


	2. Chapter 2

**A tiny blurb of Carenzo - no Klaroline in this one**

"She's got a thing for you, mate." The station attendant pulled his eyes away from Caroline's ass and glanced up at Enzo.

"R-really? No way dude, she's way out of my league."

"Not joking, mate. She said you were," Enzo crooked his fingers in the air,"'a hottie' right before we came in. Saw you through the window." Enzo arched a brow at him before spinning away from the counter and kicking open the door. He gave a final motion at Caroline, who was pulling open the door of the restroom, and gave the attendant a head nod and a thumbs up as he backed through the exit.

A few minutes later Caroline tiptoed out of the restroom - she was wearing new ballet flats and gas station bathrooms are kinda gross, ok? 'Enzo must've gone to the car already,' she thought, glancing up and only spotting the attendant at the counter. Poor kid, he was totally going through that ultra-awkward phase where his face hadn't caught up to his features and it was honestly kind of adorable. She smiled at him and he ducked his head, embarrassed, before glancing back up with an odd expression on his face. She crouched down to grab some Snoballs (seriously, why does no one ever talk about how awesome vampire metabolisms are?) and brought them up to the counter.

"Hi!"

The guy - Scott his name tag read - was looking at her with the _strangest_ look.

"'Sup." He lifted his chin at her. "You go to Carver?"

Caroline's brows knit in confusion. "Wh- oh no, I'm way out of high school."

"Oh an older girl, huh?" His voice dipped low, or tried to right before it cracked.

"I- yeah?" Caroline was rarely speechless, but a 15 year old gangly gas station attendant hitting on her with such confidence and a _knowing_ air were seriously throwing her for a loop. "Um...can I have my Snoballs?" She made a shooing motion at the money she had placed on the counter. Scott was still holding the fluffy pink globes of trashy deliciousness hostage and didn't appear to be giving them up any time soon. "It's exact change. I don't need a receipt."

"You have a date to the prom?"

"Look, Scott," At hearing his name, Scott puffed out his chest and preened. Caroline grimaced, then did a double take as she caught movement from outside. Enzo was outside the glass, bent over, shoulders shaking. Ah. Well then. Caroline sighed a weary sigh before grabbing Scott by his dingy, gas station uniform lapels, pulling him up and across the counter, and planting a kiss on his shocked mouth. He recovered quickly, and reached up a hand which Caroline batted away. She kissed him for a moment more before pulling away and walking out of the store with an "I don't do prom, sorry" tossed over her shoulder.

The car door squealed shut on its original 1978 hinges before Enzo spoke.

"I'm impressed, gorgeous."

"Thanks. So am I. He was a pretty good kisser for 15."

"Want to see how good a kisser I am?"

"Enzo," Caroline whined, "now I have to reset the count. It's now been," Caroline pulled out a pen and scribbled something out on a sheet of paper taped to the dash. "Zero minutes since the last morally questionable Enzo comment. You were up to 35 minutes earlier!"

"That doesn't count! I was sleeping." Enzo seemed affronted.

"Right." Caroline sighed. It was going to be a long trip.


	3. Chapter 3

Inspired by a song from the Skyrim OST - The Streets of Whiterun. Go listen, it is beautiful and was on repeat for like 3 days in my house.

It's the smallest of actions that reveal the truth of a relationship. Caroline had always known when her friends were about to break up or were ready to take that next step from hookup to dating - it was the body language that gave it away. Because love acts like a magnet for touch - pulling it in and making it almost impossible to keep your hands to yourself, and then the opposite, that terribly sad moment when the light dims in your head, when you feel an emptiness where the love once resided, and the fallout when the idea of touch becomes repulsive. That's how she knew Elena and Stefan were truly done, when she stopped seeing her lean into him when they drew close.

So when she thinks of Klaus, she knows that a hundred years into their - whatever it is, she still isn't comfortable naming it - that they are still in love.

She pokes her head out through the attic window, climbing up to join Klaus as he stands, hair ruffling in the evening wind, watching the light fade on the horizon. Her hand grasps his and he dimples at her, and you'll forgive the camera as it circles up and around the pair as he pulls her into his side, snaking an arm around her shoulders and kissing her forehead almost absentmindedly. For love is the comfort in the past hundred years, the ease and grace of these simple movements. Love is the muscle memory of his thumb swiping across her lower lip, the curve of his hand fitting her hip, her fingers sliding into his back pocket. The way his eyes always find her in the room at those supernatural soirees she always throws because seriously, how has Klaus not figured out that ruling with an iron fist isn't the _only_ way? Or maybe love is in how she'll bow out early from those parties, just sometimes, when he times his puppy dog look just right.

Speak of the devil - his grin has slipped off of his face, but it lingers in his eyes as he turns to watch the dying of the light. He's thoughtful as well this evening, coming out on the rooftop of their home (and ah, there it is, love revealing itself in a shift in pronouns) to muse on his own thoughts. For him, though, love tells a different tale.. One of finding that person who sees into the core of him and doesn't flinch. He remembers their first real fight, where she had stood in his mansion he shared with his siblings and turned away with a whispered "I can't save you, Klaus." He remembers even more how she returned a month later, looked him square in the eyes and said "I said you were capable of being saved. But I won't be the one to do it. You'll have to figure that one out on your own." She had rolled her eyes when he snapped at her defensively, simply pushing his arms open and hugging him until he, still confused, finally closed his arms around her.

No, it hadn't been obsession for many years. It felt trite, to be certain, to talk about how she had changed him. And not entirely truthful, for he still tore into the jugular like the ruthless killer he would always be, and he would always lean on fear and violence as his preferred means of motivation. But still, she had changed him as he had her. There had been love in his voice that howled her name when his adversaries kidnapped Caroline in a plot to distract him. There had been love in the catch of their breaths as he checked her over for injuries. There had been love in her monster's gaze before they turned as one to tear out the hearts of their attackers.

Klaus is pulled out of his reverie when Caroline sighs in contentment and tilts her head to rest on his shoulder. There is a beat of quiet as the drunken revelry a few blocks away calms for an uncharacteristic moment, as if to pay respects. Klaus turns his head into her hair and mouths "I love you" into the strands. She twists her neck to touch her lips to where his shoulder meets his neck, and he feels her mouth form the same words in return as the last of the light dies in an amber blink.


	4. Chapter 4

_Note: I was struck by one of the Richard Siken lines in a tumblr post and ended up with 2700 words. This is unedited. I just need to post and be done with it or I never will. Stops at 4x13. I can't decide if the quote as section break is cheesy or not, please let me know what you guys think. Also my brain is like a sieve and I spent half the time writing this looking up videos and becoming confused at the convoluted mess that TVD storylines were even back when they were good lmao.  
_

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

At first, she is far away, too far for even his enhanced senses. She is merely a title - 'the doppelganger's friend'. Then a flash of blond waves, a cheerleader's uniform. He notes her for her worth as a chess piece, the feint to his second play. He sees that Mystic Falls friendships run deep and he uses the folly of it to his advantage.

Plans within plans within plans and he bares his wolf teeth in victory.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

She's there, in the school, and how perfect it is, for here is another to press deep on the witch's pressure points; to find a way to make his hybrids live past a few desperate gasps before the light dies in their eyes. Her voice blares warning and he dismisses her concern with a dose of reality, not bothering to look up as 'love' spills from his lips. He knows her face well by now, does not need another study. He remembers - before the hybrid ritual when he watched her talking with the pup in the cellar, her quick mind making connections and his own name rolling off her lips. He treasured the fear in her tone, and he is glad she is here now to witness his triumph. He has noted the hand that reaches out to soothe Tyler's feverish brow. The two must dream themselves star-crossed lovers, the Romeo and Juliet of the supernatural world, mortal enemies drawn together. By his hand, if truth be told. They should be thanking him.

And so he layers plans within plans within plans to test a new hybrid's loyalty.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

He hears the death rattle of her breath as he rounds the corner into her room. Her hair clouds on the pillow and the shadows loom deep on her face as she speaks:

"Are you here to kill me?"

It's an odd question, for she knows well the cut of a werewolf's teeth is fatal, but he thinks that she says it as a condemnation, that she wields the only weapon she has, her esteem. He admires her fire and thinks that maybe this one should be spared, that there are lights that should always be allowed to shine.

There is a reverence in his hand as it sweeps aside the thin blanket she's pulled over the mark of his hybrid's loyalty. Oh, she doesn't have long, he thinks, as he eyes the angry red weals that mar her creamy skin. His anger at Stefan rises up in a flare for a moment, for look at what his erstwhile friend made him do, to use this chess piece so brutally.

It's nothing personal, he says, and he still believes it. For now.

She shifts, and the light catches on a bracelet, some hideous, common, semblance of jewelry that has the aesthete in him crying out in horror. He fingers a charm and thinks that it does not suit her in the least.

"You have to adjust your perception of time when you become a vampire, Caroline." And he knows then, when he says those words, that he will let her live should she so choose. But indeed it should be her choice, for there is a part of him that looks back on the boy he was and dreams of the comfort of cold earth cradling his bones. It is a small, secret part of him and he cannot believe he speaks of it now to her. Perhaps it is her spirit that calls to him, perhaps it is that darkness that he sees simmering underneath the skin, he's not entirely certain.

All he knows in the moment is that he sees her wrist and that damnable bracelet and thinks she should have a chance to wear the finest jewels.

So he chooses to give her a choice, knowing which one she will make, closing his eyes and breathing out in a rush at the beautiful monster's fangs closing upon his wrist.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

Although Klaus misses the spirit of centuries past, modern day does offer a world of convenience at his fingertips. Klaus brushes a hand across the tulle of the evening gown he ordered that morning and had a hybrid pick up in Richmond. He imagines the color vibrant against her skin, his birthday gift sliding down her arm as she crooks an arm through his. He thinks that he should show her his paintings, no, he _wants_ to show her his art. Wants to see her face light up with the same fire as when she claimed her life from his blood.

Later, he eyes her across the floor's expanse and drinks her in, those moments before her gaze snags unwillingly on his caught forever in his memory. Her hair falls in delicate tendrils to frame an elegant neck. Her eyes dart about, taking in the glamour of the evening, and he sees the nervousness that creeps into her gaze. He wonders then about her past, about what she's seen, where she's traveled, what dreams slide beneath the sheets with her as that golden hair fans out on the pillowcase. His hand twitches with the urge to paint her.

He dances with Miss Mystic Falls and admires her carriage. Her elegant, long-fingered hand is clasped delicately in his own, and their movements are fluid. He finds himself looking forward to how she'll manage to insult him this time.

—

She clasps her shawl around her shoulders and he smiles at how human she still is. He remembers the rise and fall of her chest from her birthday, the convention of breathing another instinct remained. He can pinpoint the moment he stopped his own - on the run from Mikael, dragging Rebekah through the damp forest, mouths wet with blood from a recent meal. A rotted stump, a mound of damp leaves, a hand over Rebekah's mouth and his own breath held until he realized.

He shakes the reverie away and refocuses on the vision in front of him.

"Do you like horses?"

—-

He is not used to being rebuked, and he blames his surprise as much as anything for his attempt to try again. It is also a thing, a slowly growing thing, that there is something between them, and it's not just in his own head. So it's another attempt at conversation, and he delights at what makes it past the façade of disdain she armors herself with. He sees it slip as she looks at his drawings, her face awed. His heart does something odd just then, a little stuttering flip at her regard. He wonders what style would be her favorite, what painting would stop her in her tracks at the Louvre, the Hermitage. Would she pause at his own? Admire the depth of color that he spent days perfecting?

And then the moment is over and her eyes flash with anger and his own echo in fury and a line has been crossed. He grits his teeth to hold the roar in and only just stops himself from tearing his Botticelli mimicry in two. She is gone, then, the words an acid burning in the pit of his stomach. He leaves the study for a moment, pulling close to a brunette server carrying a full tray of champagne flutes. The glasses clatter noisily to the ground, but he does have the presence of mind to drag the server back into the room (mustn't upset mother) before tearing the man's throat open. Klaus spins the server around and the shocked scream cuts off abruptly, eyes dilating from the compulsion. Klaus' fury grows from his own sloppiness.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

He knows her role by now, his little blonde distraction, the baring of cleavage as she enters the bar almost comical in its obviousness. So when she makes a loop and heads right back out the door, he doesn't care that he's being lured. He follows with a spring in his step and a grin dimpling his cheeks, the thrill of the chase flaring brightly in his chest. He has a captive audience, he knows it, and he will use everything at his disposal to place the seeds of doubt in her mind. She can't be _that_ great an actress - while she is too smart to be seduced by him (and oh at that line, the pang in his chest grows) - she doesn't realize the fundamental truth that familiarity breeds more than just contempt. But he feels the urgency, the time slipping away, and he wants to drink in whatever truths she will let spill from her lips, this fascinating creature with her bright smile that hides.

So captivated, he forgets the ruse for a moment. Forgets himself, forgets that the world is a betrayal, forgets that she cares nothing for him beyond a distraction. The pang in his chest twists into something darker, cold anger rushes through his veins as his dead heart beats double time to spread the poison of his rage.

And so he makes plans within plans within plans and tries not to think of her.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

He inhales sharply at the sight of Caroline in her red dress, hair up in perfect finger waves, for his imagination is vivid and he sees her on his arm in Chicago in the 20s. He pictures them in the corner booth as their eyes meet across their meal. He pictures her monster's visage receding, veins fading until her skin is unmarred except for the drop of blood that she licks off the corner of her mouth. She would have been a queen.

So he tells her so, and she rebukes him, and his patience is starting to wear thin, he admits, for it is not his nature to pursue. He manipulates, he seduces, he coerces, he forces, he plans, he tracks, but he does not pursue. So he tells her the truth as he sees it because he's tired of her hiding behind her sharp retorts and he sees to the core of her and why won't she listen?

So he continues planning his plans within plans and he tries not to include her in them.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

He smells the vervain and the rawness of her wounds and his breath is at her ear and he clutches her like a thing once lost and she is safe, she is safe.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

Her worry washes over him like a tidal wave, and oh god it is not for him but he lets himself pretend for just a moment because the words she says make it _so_ easy. "Klaus is dead," and her voice breaks like she's mourning him and it strikes a match in his chest and the ember flares.

He cringes even as he says the words, for he knows better than to be this obvious. "You're strong, and you have a beautiful future ahead of you." He is surprised she does not catch on, blames her distress. He wonders if this is what it is like to truly embody a role, to be an actor upon a stage and feel as if the words were meant for you and not a character.. Because he kisses her and it is only as their tongues slide that he remembers this is not for him and never will be.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

It's easy to be a stalker when you have a team of sire-bonded hybrids at your disposal to gather information. He flaps the folded paper against his leg and grins - Caroline Forbes, journalism superstar. He simply must bring up her editorial diatribe on the vagaries of school lunches the next time she's sent as a distraction. Not that he disagreed that hot dogs were an offense against "both nutrition and humanity".

He spots the Miss Mystic Falls application on the corner of his desk and slips it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, smoothing his hair with a practiced flick. He should have eaten before he got dressed, and he rolls his eyes as he realizes he'll need to drink from a glass. It wouldn't do to show up to his first date with blood spotting his collar.

When he arrives he waits on the edge of the lawn to get the lay of the land. He sees Tyler and that wolf bitch, spots Elena - and there - there she is ordering her minions about like the queen she is. He watches for a moment, smile on his face as the staff scuttles away, chastened.

"And how am I doing?"

His heart warms at her answer and it is those moments, when she drops her guard, that add more fuel to his imagination's fire. Later she opens to him, as if…he is a friend and he wedges his foot in the door for he won't let it close, won't lose this traction. He opens up to her, because he sees the way her eyes change, disdain and hatred turning for just a split second to something warmer. He wants to see more of it, and so he tells her of the hummingbird. And if a part of him also loves that the whelp of a hybrid sees it all, hears his speech and sees the way her eyes change, well then, isn't that part of the plan?

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

His rage is cold and calculated and moves around inside his skin. He shoves Carol Lockwood's head under the water of the fountain and for a moment wishes he could do the same to Caroline, to be rid of her traitorous heart. To feel the life ebb away and know he will reclaim himself because he is tired of the lie he keeps telling and why does he keep that tiny shred of hope that lets him care? He feels Mrs. Lockwood's struggles lessen, hears the sound of lungs filling with water and he plans his plans within plans and if he wonders how he'll acquit himself with her for just a moment, it's a moment that swiftly passes.

Carol's movements cease and she stares the glassy-eyed stare of the lifeless, moments ago staring at the bottom of the pond while the brain sent panic signals through the nervous system and the heart pumped and the lungs pulled. Klaus lets go, stands, and lets the lie continue, trapped for now beneath cold fury.

 **I am the thing that is hurtling towards you…**

His brother lies dead and his scream is not loud enough, can never be loud enough. He is trapped and he stares at the body of his brother, the smoke still rising from his corpse. Klaus spent centuries keeping them safe and now an impudent vampire and her baby hunter brother have killed that which he vowed to protect and there is no scream loud enough to contain his rage.

So when Caroline comes in she becomes part of the plan, you're just collateral damage, love, nothing personal. One does not live a thousand years without being able to make up a plan on the fly and her disdain is a punch in the gut already soured by grief but the taste of her on his lips almost makes him regret.

She lays there, a sense of déjà vu punctuated by her rasping breath. She speaks and his heart twists and reminds him of everything he is not and can never have and Kol's body lays as a sentinel on the edges of his vision and her words punch a hole in his chest. As he often does with her, he pretends, and he lets hope ask the question, even if his words are laced with doubt.

Her breath falters and her eyes close and her chest stops rising and his heart won't stop twisting and he is undone. She ragdolls in his arms and it takes her a few terrifying moments to start sucking at the punctures in his wrist but she does, and he combs her hair back and mumbles into her hair promises he always intended to keep.

Because he sees it clearly, the thing that has been hurtling towards him for a year now, the flaring in his chest, the twist of his heart. He sees it clearly and he is surprised, for he doesn't feel weak.


	5. Chapter 5

**Written for a tumblr challenge to write a fanfic in five minutes.**

I don't know how anyone can write a fanfic in five minutes, but i tried to keep it under 30 mins which means i barely got anything written. I am the slowest writer alive.

* * *

Try to NOT think of something. Just take a few moments and try to wipe your mind clean of a particular thought. You _can't_ without thinking of whatever it is you're trying to forget, and then it's there in your head; in an image, a scrawl of handwriting, or in 32 point sans serif with the cursor blinking resolutely.

Caroline finds herself in this very predicament, nails tapping against the lacquered wood of a bar in some city, in some country, in the year 2233. She's just broken up with her boyfriend, a twenty year old dark haired boy whose brain matched his looks and thus had kept her attention for the past several years.

Caroline was long past the days of thinking she wasn't quite enough, though those feelings had lingered for a good century or so. In the prevailing years she'd dated indiscriminately, almost drunk on the power of knowing her own worth. She split time between picking out those boys (and girls) who worshipped at her altar with doe-eyed promises, and dating those untameable assholes whom she took great joy in breaking up with when they finally realized what they had.

But still, she couldn't shake him. Although he was never conspicuous, she knew he delighted in leaving her subtle clues that he was still around. Every time she moved to a new city she saw the eyes widen, the whispered murmurs, the tails that she got more and more creative with dispatching as the years went on. Klaus made it _very_ clear that he was still waiting, still intent on being her last.

Most days she cursed those words, said long ago to a Caroline so very, very different from the one that is now signalling the bartender for another shot of vodka. She watches his acknowledging nod, sees the play of muscles in his forearm as he flips the bottle, thinks she might go home with him tonight. She likes his easy confidence and that shy smile that almost seems a contradiction.

Or maybe not. Because as soon as she thinks of contradictions she remembers the bark rough against her back and his mouth soft on her own and the rasp of stubble and the slow drag of his lips down her throat.

Damn it.

Downing the shot the bartender slides over with that _killer_ lopsided grin, Caroline sets down the glass with a clink and tosses a hundred on the bar, brows raised in a salute to his hotness. She will never know if the promise of his charms would have been realized, because she's been avoiding another reality long enough, and she's tired of the effort of trying not to think.

So she lets go, and it's not a surprise that the memories are _right there_ considering she's been trying to avoid them for the past two centuries. With a nostalgic smile she decides that she might just send Klaus a handwritten note asking him to save her a dance, and that she might just sign it 'Fondly, Caroline.'


	6. Chapter 6

Written for my first prompt on Tumblr, given by the lovely MrsAgentCooper here on . Go check out her stuff, she's awesome at smut and fluffy goodness, and her GoT crossover is one of my most favorite things ever.

 **klaroline prompt (post-canon?): it turns out Klaus is actually a cover hog and Caroline is not amused.**

Caroline waved frantically at Bonnie from the sidewalk before joining her at a table inside - they both had been dying to try Tessie's since it opened up a few weeks ago in an old shotgun-style building off of Esplanade. The café had a bohemian vibe with bright mosaic tile lining the walls, the centerpiece a chandelier crafted from stainless steel kitchen utensils. They'd heard the food was as quirky and fun as the decor and had made plans as soon as they could.

The girls placed their orders, chatting animatedly. They didn't often have time to catch up these days; Bonnie studying for her undergrad at Tulane in Linguistics and Caroline focusing on developing an outreach program for newly-turned vamps, but they still tried to meet a few times a month to hang out. Maintaining their friendship would always be important to them both.

Bonnie was waving her hands about madly, something about arguing with her Latin professor over the root form of phaesmatos when Caroline stopped her. "I'm sorry. I'm so not paying attention, it's freezing in here." Caroline craned her neck to look at the ceiling, spotting the air vent. "Seriously, what's up with this place? It's like 30 degrees?" The air vent stared back, seemed to blow colder in response. Caroline stood, her chair screeching on the tile with the suddenness of movement. "Bon, I can't do this, it feels like I'm having lunch in Antarctica." She rubbed at her arms, trying to draw in some warmth while spinning to get away from the air vent and straight onto

….the floor of the bedroom. She blinked once, twice, a few times, her mind struggling to shake off the fog of the dream. Sitting up, she leaned back on her hands a moment, still disoriented, staring up at the bed where the sheets lay tangled and Klaus lay hidden, blankets tucked tight around his legs and pulled over his head all warm and snug and

"Damn it, Klaus!"

"Hmm." His response wasn't even a question, just an instinctive reply to the sound of her voice. He was still asleep. Asshole.

She stood up and found the edge of the blanket and pulled with the perfect combination of vamp strength and delicacy, unrolling the blanket in one smooth movement. Klaus flew into the side table, head knocking against a lamp before his reflexes caught and he pushed off the table to standing, his head swiveling every which way, hands poised to tear out the hearts of any threat. Seeing only Caroline, he relaxed a bit, but his voice was thick with sleep and an edge of worry.

"Caroline, what -"

"Blanket hog!" Caroline rasped before flinging herself bodily on the mattress, the comforter already wrapped around her. Klaus watched, amused, as she flipped sides a few times, her legs shifting as she struggled to get comfortable. A foot emerged for a moment, then pulled back as the chill of the night air hit. He swore that every few words of her exhausted slurring held some resemblance to the English language, but he couldn't quite grasp the thread of her mumblings, so he just let his grin stretch wide as his gaze adored her.

After a few minutes of what seemed to be an epic battle with the bedclothes, she sat up, hair a disheveled mess - his favorite look. "I'm awake and now it'll take me forever to get back to sleep. This is the third time this week! Asshole! Get your own covers!"

"I'm sorry, love." He thought to employ the bashful puppydog look, decided to hold it in reserve for when she was more awake. He flashed away, returned with another blanket. "Here, look, I got my own."

"But I want to sleep _with_ you under the _same_ covers!"

Klaus had to close his eyes and pause. It wasn't that she was contradicting herself - that was just her exhaustion talking. No. It was that, to this day, a part of him remained in perpetual shock that she had chosen this life, had chosen him. The warmth in his chest was almost painful and he took a moment to savor it.

He dropped the blanket and slid underneath the sheets, brushing his lips at her temple before settling in and curling around her. She bent her knees and scootched back, skin touching wherever it possibly could, letting a leg slide in between his and huffing a small, pleased noise as she found the perfect arrangement of limbs. His smile curved against the pillow and he brushed her hair back from her face, carding his fingers through the strands until he sensed she was asleep. Turning on his back, he reached over the side of the bed and pulled the extra blanket up and over before settling back at her side.

He didn't trust himself not to steal the covers again.


	7. Written in the Stars

Written in response to a tumblr prompt from the purestheartslove. Since I had just written something super fluffy when I got this prompt, I decided to somehow turn stargazing into an adventure story and I'm pretty happy with how it came out!

 **Klaroline+under the stars, thank you 3**

* * *

 _ **Are you safe? -KM**_

Caroline scrubbed at her face with one hand, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she stared down at her phone. She didn't recognize the number, but it only took a few moments for her to puzzle out the identity of the sender. Why was he contacting her now?

 **What are you talking about?**

 _ **Vampires are dying in droves in New York, some sort of targeted infection. Needed to make sure you were safe. -KM**_

 **I'm actually down in Mystic Falls visiting Bonnie. I'm ok.**

After shooting off the text, she stared at her phone disbelievingly for a few minutes more. It had been five years since she had last spoken to Klaus, two years since she had driven down there with the twins in a fit of despair, full of confusion and seeking the advice (and let's be serious, the solace) of the man, who amongst everything else, never seemed to let her down since that first uttered "friends, then?"

Funny the things that stick with you. Especially when a certain Salvatore brother you expected to be with forever certainly didn't.

Caroline sent a quick text to said ex, asking if he had heard anything about what Klaus was referring to, then headed over to Bonnie's. Caroline wished she could get her friend out of Mystic Falls. This place clung to you, the history of both simpler and more horrific times sticking to your skin like the thick, humid air of summer. She was happy in New York and glad she had made the move, but Bonnie's ties ran deep here.

* * *

Damon Salvatore died on a Tuesday, Elena's name on his lips. Caroline didn't miss the way Bonnie's eyes cut to the floor, and she curled her hand around a thin shoulder, squeezing. The air was quiet now that Damon's rattling breath, hallmark of this strange vampire virus, no longer filled the air.

He had ignored Caroline's warnings, drinking and killing with his once-again customary disregard for human life, taking his death sentence sips on a side road just outside the Mystic Falls border.

Stefan reached over to close those ice-blue eyes, closing his own in an odd sort of symmetry. Caroline felt bad for not feeling the pain as they did; she had made her peace with Damon but he would never be someone she shed tears over, and frankly she still sometimes seethed with rage when she thought of him. So instead of mourning she sat, focusing on her fear. What was this illness that was terrorizing the vampire community? Who was next? Could you get it from any human? Was animal blood safe? Blood bags? She wondered if Klaus was looking into the science of it all, snuck a look at her phone as Bonnie swallowed hard and Stefan blew out a slow, shaky breath.

A new text, the words inert on the screen until they came alive in her head:

 _ **I hope that you can forgive me.**_

She glanced up, Bonnie and Stefan both motionless in their grief, hunched over Damon's corpse. She squeezed Bonnie's shoulder again, kissed Stefan's cheek, and left the room.

 _ **I hope that you can forgive me.**_ Sent several hours ago, just before she had gotten the call from Bonnie.

She tapped out a reply. _**What are you talking about?**_ A buzz sounded and she looked down at her phone in confusion, thinking she somehow miss-sent the text. She looked up just as that accent cut through the air.

"For breaking my promise."

He was staring at her like he always did, and if she were to admit it to herself, the world fell away like it always did. That strange mix of guardedness and adoration colored his gaze, letting her know that she had the power to hurt him, and oh how she had used it in the past.

He ducked his head, trying to catch her eye. "Caroline? I must admit that silence is not the greeting I expected."

Caroline gave a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I'm just - why are you here? Do you know about Damon?"

Klaus leveled a stare in response. Of course he knew.

"It's not safe. Elijah has caught - _whatever_ this is. It seems to affect my family differently, but he grows weak. I cannot lose-" His jaw snapped shut and a muscle ticked in his neck. A gust of wind filled the silence as Caroline watched Klaus gather his thoughts; his eyes broke away from hers, needing space to say his next words: "I need to know you're safe, and the best way I know to do that is if you come with me."

"There's no way in hell that's happening, Klaus." Stefan pushed open the door of the boarding house, walking over to stand by Caroline and looping an arm across her shoulders. She looked up at him, annoyed.

"Don't you think that's for me to decide?" Caroline bit out, turning back to Klaus. "Do you have labs set up, as well as witches looking at potential magic causes?" At Klaus' nod she continued, "I think it's going to take every resource we can lay our hands on to figure this out, and I want to be a part of that." She turned back to Stefan and grabbed his hand, locking his fingers in her own and pushing their linked hands up on his chest. "I know you're trying to protect me, but Klaus isn't the threat, this thing that's killing vampires is. I have to go."

* * *

"Yes he is behaving, Bonnie." Caroline rolled her eyes with a grin, pushing on the portholed swinging door that separated the labs from the rest of the compound. The Originals certainly knew how to fund a research lab - she had gone through a decontamination room and an airlock before finally calling Bonnie back.

Deep inside Elijah lay, grey-veined skin cracking as the days wore on and desiccation warred with the infection that tore through his system. He was dying.

Last week the scientists had discovered a synthetic compound in one of the infected's blood samples that resembled the molecular structure of white oak. Klaus would have destroyed the lab at the news had Caroline's hand not stayed his own.

"Kol is still asking about you, wants to know when you'll come down and join the 'fun'." Caroline changed the subject from Klaus's attentions - and her own feelings - she thought ruefully, cradling the phone between ear and shoulder and pulling the door open that led outside. The sun was bright, the Louisiana air swampy. "Don't get snippy with me! It's not my fault you chose to stay behind. Ancestral magic my ass, I think you're just avoiding Kol."

The conversation continued much in the same way for over an hour, Caroline happy to have a chance to relax into the comfort of old friendship. To be fair, Bonnie had actually learned a lot from the Bennetts on the Other Side, including information about the origins of the 'vampire virus'. Claire, her name was, a thirty-something scientist and witch who had apparently spent most of her life seeking a way to destroy vampirism. No one seemed to know the reason why, but it wasn't like that held much importance when the immediate need was figuring out a way to keep vampires from dying left and right.

Klaus had quarantined a group of humans when Elijah first fell ill, realizing too late that they needed to secure a viable blood supply. From what they could tell, the virus was spread via crop duster, magic used to make the virus inert from farm to table to human until a vampire's fangs pierced the skin and drew blood; something in the act of that deep pull triggered the magic to flare.

Caroline walked towards one of the greenhouses where they grew food for their living blood supply, waving at Sharon, a sweet, older vampire who held a PhD in chemistry and a hell of a green thumb.

Klaus looked up from his sketchpad as she entered. She often found him here, drawing the botanicals, detailed sketches of the underside of leaves; the methodical vein-work a balm to his increasing worry over Elijah.

"We have a name, Claire LaMountain." Klaus's eyes flashed at the news and he set his charcoal down, dusting his hands off on black denim as Caroline continued. "That, combined with the pattern of cities hit by the virus, may let us figure out where she's hiding. There's only so much we can figure out unraveling the spell and the science. We need to talk to her, see her notes."

Klaus sent off several texts at vamp speed before looking back up. "How is he?"

Caroline pulled up a cheap, plastic chair next to Klaus, hunched forward and stared at the ground as she swung her feet. "Worse. The white oak is closer to his heart every day."

Klaus had once said he appreciated her honesty, and it was something she would always maintain with him. "We have everything and everyone possible working on this thing, Klaus. If anyone is capable of saving him, it's you."

Klaus glanced up in surprise at those words, so similar to ones spoken long ago in such drastically different circumstances. His eyes darkened and her breath caught with their intensity. Working in close proximity to Klaus was distracting, to say the least. It was funny what fighting a life-or-death crisis and being on the same side for once was starting to do to her previous reservations.

Like get rid of them completely.

* * *

"You _idiot_! You just signed my brother's death warrant!" Klaus roared and clawed into a vampire's chest, his hand brutally tearing through bone and sinew. The heart smacked wetly against the laboratory's wall, coming to rest on the floor with another damp thunk. A pale woman sat propped against the same wall, eyes staring unblinkingly, neck a ravaged mess. Why the vampire had thought the scientist's blood would be safe was anyone's guess, but his decision may have cost not only his life, but all of theirs too.

Caroline slid to her knees, grasping at the woman's lab coat, the name _LaMountain_ stitched across the breast, and drew in a shuddering breath at the faint heartbeat. Biting at her wrist she coaxed the blood into the woman's mouth and waited, Klaus crouching down next to her. They stared a moment and watched as the woman's eyes turned from sightless death to such hatred Caroline felt branded by it. The woman lunged suddenly, and Klaus cried out Caroline's name, pulling her back, arm banded across her shoulders.

The woman eyed this exchange with such intensity Caroline could almost see the wheels turning in her mind.

"I've been surprised by the level of emotion I've seen in vampires. I suppose it's easy to feel when you know at any moment you can simply turn it off." She pushed off the ground, her full height barely reaching to Caroline's chin. Wiping her thick tortoiseshell glasses off with the edge of her lab coat, she introduced herself. "I'm Claire, and you'll all be dead soon."

Klaus was never one to take threats, preferring instead to make them. With a snarl he pinned Claire to the wall, her feet dangling.

"Save us the theatrics and tell us how to make the vaccine."

Claire gurgled a choking laugh and Klaus let her down enough to speak. "There's literally no reason for me to tell you. The only thing I want is to see the vampire race dead, and I will succeed in that wish, even if I don't live long enough to see it realized."

Caroline spoke up. "Why do you hate us all so much? Was someone you love killed by a vampire? I'm so sorry if that happened, it's happened to me too, but it doesn't warrant murdering an entire population of a supernatural species that can be just as human as you are."

"Bullshit!" Claire snapped out in a rage, spittle flying from her lips. "Bull-SHIT. When it gets hard, you can turn those feelings off, just shut them off, not a care in the world." She was pacing now, and Caroline held a hand up, sensing Klaus' tension at the movement but realizing they were on the edges of something important.

Claire was staring at her now, sharp eyes seeing into the heart of the matter. "You're just as bad as the rest of them. What was it? What made you turn yours off? Why was life so hard that you had to ditch everyone that ever loved you?"

Klaus made a small noise and Caroline turned her head, spotting what he was subtly pointing to immediately. A small framed picture, two children - siblings by the look of it - the girl in ponytails and thick glasses; a much younger Claire, then. Caroline glanced back at Claire who had grown silent, her face twisted in a mask of grief that she quickly composed.

"The switch makes your life easy, a get out of jail free card. An excuse to kill freely and deal with the consequences later, if at all. It's bullshit, it makes you monsters, and now you're going to die. You have _days_. Even if you make me transition, the virus is in me and I'll die. Torture me for information while you can. Ransack the labs, do whatever. You'll fail, for it's all written in the stars."

Even Klaus wasn't fast enough to stop the scalpel from tearing a bloody smile across Claire's throat, and they both watched in horror as she dropped to the floor.

* * *

Claire had kept meticulous journals in both the lab and her apartment close to the local medical college, and while they helped the vampires gain insight into the enigmatic scientist's background, the science and magic sections were encoded. Klaus had cryptographers working on the code by hand - it wasn't something a computer could crack quickly as it used symbols instead of letters and numbers. So far they had come up with nothing.

And so Elijah's heartbeat continued to slow and Klaus grew more and more agitated in his frustration. The compound's inhabitants gave him an even wider berth than normal, and Caroline seemed to be the only one that could calm him down. She found herself being asked by his siblings to play the little blonde distraction once again, except this time was different. She understood Klaus just as she always had, and she could see how badly he was hurting underneath the snarling exterior. This wasn't motivated by an inability to understand friendship, or a twisted power play, or a petulant grab for attention. This was fear for his brother's life, pure and simple. So she found herself seeking him out more and more, and she even let herself admit that she looked forward to it much the same.

"Where's Kol today?" Caroline asked, entering the greenhouse and flopping down on the cushioned lounge she had moved from the game room in the mansion. If she was going to spend all her time out here watching Klaus draw, she was going to damn well be comfortable.

Klaus glanced up, smile curving at his lips. "He's in New Zealand, directing the operation to remove all the virus-laden pesticides." With them no closer to the cure, the Mikaelsons had directed their attentions on dismantling the infrastructure Claire had put in place. "Although to be honest that probably means he's at Lord of the Rings set and letting someone else do the dirty work."

"Ha, I wouldn't be surprised." Caroline rolled her eyes and tucked her feet under her, leaning over the table in front of Klaus and sliding a piece of paper aside. "What're you working on tod-" she trailed off, stunned.

He was working on her face, apparently. Well, a ridiculously gorgeous version of her face, that is. She was reading in the drawing, the rough-hewn timbers of the mansion's vaulted living room in the background. Was this how he truly saw her? This girl - no, this woman with such a calm strength in her face? How could this be her?

She looked up to meet his expectant gaze, shot through with that guardedness that signified he was waiting for rejection. "Klaus, it's beautiful."

" _You_ are beautiful, Caroline," he responded simply, and something unspoken passed between them, as if they had taken another step away from proms, dopplegangers, distractions, and the rest of their Mystic Falls past.

* * *

The witches had made progress in unraveling the spell that allowed the virus to lie dormant until a vampire ingested it, but they still couldn't figure it out completely. Claire had truly been a genius, melding science with witchcraft so inexorably that it was impossible to separate. The secret truly had to be in the encoded journals, so when Caroline was not with Klaus, and even sometimes when she was, she pored over the journals trying to spot the patterns, trying to find something in the journal that might reveal a clue to the nature of the symbols.

She was rereading one of the journals in the living room of the mansion, the late afternoon sunlight streaking through the room in thick shafts of light and warming the leather couch where she sat, feet propped on an ottoman. 'To my darling daughter on her sixteenth birthday', the black marker scrawled across the inside cover proclaimed. Flipping to the second-to-last entry, Caroline began to read.

 _Dear Diary,_

 _I miss them so much._

The rest of the page was blank and Caroline flipped to the next.

 _Dear Diary,_

 _Marcus did something at the funeral today. I felt…him leave me. Like he was there and then just gone. I went to talk to him and he looked at me so coldly I thought I might freeze to death. I don't…I don't understand. Is this how people without a twin feel? Like their heart is empty all the time and something is missing? Lost?_

 _Dear Diary,_

 _Marcus left an hour ago, wouldn't listen to anything I said, just told me he's in a better place now and safe from the pain. I don't think he's ever coming back._

 _I'm not safe from the pain. I hate him so much for leaving me._

There was a large section that was crossed out with thick black marker after that and Caroline pondered at what it had contained. She didn't think Claire had known then what Marcus had become, assumed she had put the pieces together when her aunt began teaching her witchcraft. She thought about what it had to feel like, much like she had for Elena what seemed like eons ago. To lose both parents, and then, to lose a sibling, a part of you, at an age where your hormones are all over the place and you don't really know which way is up? Yeah, Caroline could at least see what set Claire on her path of revenge.

Not that it did any good now. The virus was out there, clawing its way to countless vampire hearts, frothing their mouths as their vampire healing failed over and over again to heal the damage.

But she continued to read, looking back at Marcus and Claire's life, reading about their interest in science at a young age, their various experiments and studies described with utmost gravity in a carefully-crayoned scrawl. She knew the answer lay somewhere within these writings and she was running out of time to find it.

* * *

"Come with me," Klaus' grin was part glee, part temptation as he pulled Caroline up from the greenhouse lounge. "We've been stuck here for too long."

Caroline shrugged with a small smile. "OK, but I don't like surprises, where are we going?"

Klaus adopted a faux-shocked expression. "You don't like surprises?! Colour me astonished!" Caroline glared at him, jabbing him with an affronted elbow, and his grin split even wider, dimples in full prominence. Moments like these she felt like she could see the young man as he was ~980 years ago. It was completely and utterly charming and beyond dangerous.

The Land Rover was rumbling over the country road when Klaus took a sharp left into a field, Caroline letting out an involuntary gasp at the suddenness of the movement. The car jostled through the tall grass, lurching to and fro as it hit divots in the ground and Caroline held on for dear life until they rumbled to a stop in a cleared area next to a dark house.

"Warn me next time you attempt offroad adventures, would you?" Caroline rubbed at her elbow where it had rammed into the door and scowled at Klaus, who was pulling a small cooler out of the back of the Land Rover.

"Ooh what's in there? Oh my god, are we having a night picnic? We are, aren't we?" Caroline clapped her hands in delight, looking in the backseat and pulling out a thick blanket Klaus must have packed earlier.

"Indeed we are. B positive, some Pinot Noir, and I had Alyssa make some of those devilled eggs you-"

"No way! Gimmeeeee!" Caroline tucked the blanket under an arm, making grabby hands at Klaus who burst out laughing.

"Patience, Caroline. Waiting makes it all the sweeter, I've found." His voice deepened on the last line and Caroline swallowed audibly. She wasn't sure how to react, so chose to ignore it for now, unfurling the blanket where Klaus set the cooler down and reaching inside to pull out the devilled eggs. Blood could wait, Alyssa made the BEST devilled eggs.

—–

"Why did you let me eat so many?" Caroline groaned and laid back on the blanket, hands holding her stomach.

"Excuse me? You're the one who batted my hand away when I tried to get one for myself."

"Yeah, well, they're really good," Caroline responded lamely, feeling the blanket shift as Klaus lay down beside her. Caroline could feel the heat coming off of him from where he lay inches away and scrambled for a distraction. She pointed up at the sky, where the stars blazed across their velvet backdrop, so bright in this rural sky.

"There's my favorite set of stars."

"Which constellation?"

Caroline quirked her lips. "None of 'em. I could never see constellations, because the sky doesn't have those lines drawn like they are in the books. So I just picked my favorite grouping of stars, right under that super bright one."

"That's Venus. Ah, yes, I see. Caroline's favorite stars." She could hear the smile in his voice and she fought the sudden urge to grab his hand, entwine her fingers in his.

"OK Mr. Know-it-all. Do you have a favorite set of stars?" Caroline glanced over at him before turning her face back to the sky.

"You'll laugh." Caroline turned her head to look at him expectantly until he continued. "It's Lupus."

"The wolf for the hybrid, I should have known." Caroline gave a small laugh. "Can you show it to me?"

Klaus grabbed her hand in his and her heart lurched fitfully in her chest. He pointed and she watched their clasped hands trace from point to point, forming a shape that vaguely resembled a wolf…if it was sitting like a human. The legs tapering from the star to the body, the lines connecting the points, the -

"Ohmygodohmygod OH MY GOD Klaus!" Caroline shot up and off the blanket, racing back to the car and grabbing her purse, pulling out one of Claire's journals.

"What is it? He looked oddly hurt, and Caroline had to think a moment before realizing he might have seen her jumping away as a rejection. She pulled him back down to the blanket and opened the book in front of them, giving into the earlier urge to twine the fingers of her right hand with his while she pointed with her left. His shoulders relaxed visibly and something in her throat ached with it even in her excitement.

"The constellations are the code! Claire and her brother went through an astronomy phase when they were little, she talked about how they were saving their allowances to buy a telescope. Look, isn't that your wolf?"

Klaus nodded and grabbed the journal, flipping pages to where he reached some more of the symbols. "How did I not make the connection earlier? Here's Casseopia, and Virgo. And there must be something with the different colors used - see here, how the third dot of the constellation is red instead of black like the others."

"And this one here is blue? I wonder if the colors signify whether they are letters or numbers. Oh my god we cracked it, Klaus. We have this. We can save Elijah!"

* * *

Caroline headed the worldwide distribution of the vaccine developed in Klaus' labs based on their code breaking, her ruthless efficiency ensuring that the virus was contained and eradicated within weeks of the vaccine's creation.

The vampire virus was now very much a thing of the past. Elijah made a full recovery, the vaccine breaking down the synthetic white oak to the point where his vampire healing could destroy it.

Klaus had managed to maneouver for sworn fealty in exchange for the vaccine despite Caroline's protests. They had compromised on many things, but Klaus now had more to protect than ever before and couldn't yet see the benefits of ruling with kindness instead of fear and intimidation.

But they had nothing but time, and right now they were too busy making up for the time they had lost before.

Rome, Paris, Tokyo - they had a lot of cities to visit, after all.

* * *

 _Please let me know what you think! Did I telegraph too hard with the line? Did the story get bogged down anywhere? What was your favorite part? I'd love to hear from you!  
_


	8. Chapter 8

**Written for this anonymous prompt on tumblr, with many liberties taken:**

 ** _"Prompt. Klaus in sleeping curse. Bekah finally tracks Caroline to see if Bonnie can help. Kol tells them there's no need. Caroline accidentally wakes him up...love confession while arguing with Rebekah? 'Of course I want to help Rebekah! I love him'"_**

* * *

 **October 10, 2040**

The dreams start in the fall, on the very night Caroline turns seventeen again. She falls asleep in the age-old pattern of the insomniac: racing thoughts and plans and lists and then that bit of incongruity that flits across as sleep finally chooses to descend. Caroline has just added "alien landscape" to the bottom of her tightly-lettered grocery list and a part of her mind rears in confusion, eyes fluttering limply; sleep wins this round.

And feelings descend.

There are no images, just colors and flashes and _oh_ the sensations. The buoyancy of joy, the smell of turned earth and fresh grass, the sound of laughter and children's voices calling. Caroline is surrounded by it, the happiness sinking into her bones then buoying her up, and she floats down the river of voices until the falls approach. The voices change, the joy turns to sullen anger turns to fear and Caroline's own heart beats frantically as the wind whips past, running, running away but _there_ , the vice-grip of a hand, and _there_ , the pain blooms.

She wakes up, breath heavy in her lungs, the sheet pulled up from all four corners of the bed and curling around her. The dream lies heavy in her mind - no chance of forgetting this one. She reaches up and massages her arm where that grip had descended, wincing a bit at the ghost sensation. What the hell was that, and why was it so intense?

* * *

The next night Caroline approaches sleep tentatively, as if it is a feral cat. She makes her mental lists and waits, shoulders tense, so it's no surprise that dawn nears before she finally falls asleep out of exhaustion. Terror ushers her into this dream, cold fingers of it sliding down her spine as a woman's voice raises in a cadenced call. She smells the blood before she tastes it, and it is a confusing feeling, for her own canines emerge at the same time as she feels revulsion rise in her belly. She gags around the blood and the anxiety fills every corner of this dream, her heart beating rabbit-fast; she feels like prey.

The dream shifts then, in the way that dreams often do, without warning but with a calm acceptance that this change is normal, expected. Except the emotions are so diametrically opposed that Caroline almost starts awake, for now bloodlust fills her veins and she can feel the flesh tear and a laugh bubbles up in her throat. It is a man's laugh, and were she not overcome with sensation she could almost recognize it as she hears the screams of the dying and the calls for mercy; feels bones crack beneath her feet. She is so powerful and no one will ever hurt her again. She is giddy with it and dips her head to drink from a young man's neck, wrinkling her nose at the odor of sweat before the blood flows down her throat rich and pure and all she can think is _where is the next?_

She wakes up in a pool of sweat and her hand between her legs. She pulls it back, sharply, the bile rising in her throat and sending her running to the bathroom she shares with Bonnie. She hears a soft knock a few minutes later, Bonnie no doubt having woken to the sound of Caroline's retching.

"I'm ok."

"Yeah, sure sounds like it." Bonnie's droll reply makes Caroline smile and she stands, grabbing her toothbrush with one hand and opening the connecting door with the other.

"I been habbing reary weird dreams," Caroline says through a mouthful of toothpaste.

"That make you want to vomit? That's pretty hardcore." Bonnie raises a brow, face still relatively unchanged from the bloom of youth. Black don't crack, and being a witch didn't hurt either.

Caroline holds a finger up, rinses her mouth out and sets her toothbrush in the mercury glass toothbrush holder that coordinates with the soap dish and towel rack. Caroline's decorative influence, of course.

"They're so consuming, Bon. It's like I'm in someone else's head, their body, but I still am aware of myself, so the feelings are that much more intense. Tonight…" Caroline pauses, swallows, "tonight I was in some huge, terrifying battle, there were shouts and screams and the smell was almost overwhelming and I was just…I was just killing everything. But the worst part was, it felt good to kill, like I reveled in it. It was a freaking _turn-on._ And god Bonnie, that's the thing - I've felt that as a vampire, it feels good to go with your nature. But I don't want -" Caroline shudders and Bonnie pulls her down to sit at the edge of the tub across from her, rubbing her thumb across Caroline's knuckles soothingly.

"How long has this been going on?" Bonnie asks.

"Since my birthday, about a month. I'm just…tonight was really bad." Caroline sounds defeated, her head hanging low from exhaustion before a spark of an idea brings her gaze level with Bonnie's own. "Do you think it could be a spell?"

Bonnie shakes her head. "Nahh, you think I wouldn't feel another witch's signature in MY house?" Bonnie's grin is teasing and Caroline smiles reflexively in response. "I mean, it still could be magic, but it's not something directed at you specifically. I can probably make the dreams go away, if you like."

"No." Bonnie raises a brow at the quickness of Caroline's response. "It's just…I kind of want the opposite. I want to know more. I want to be able to see what's going on. Do you think you could, I don't know, make them more visible? I was going to say more intense, but that's not at ALL what I mean. I may die if that happens. I just want to be able to see what's going on." Caroline fiddles with the shower liner, not making eye contact. She knows she sounds weird.

"You sure? Would you have wanted to see whatever your dream was tonight?"

"Yes, I mean - no, but yes," Caroline groans and throws her hands up. "I know I sound crazy, but it's like…Ugh I just…I've been living inside someone's head at night and I kinda want to just know who they are, you know?"

Bonnie yawns, cracking her knuckles and rolling her eyes at Caroline's wince. "Well, let's do it then. But for now, I'm giving you some herbs to help you sleep. I need to find the right spell and that's totally gonna have to wait until morning." With another gaping yawn, Bonnie shuffles into her room, thrusting a mug of something that smells like rotting vegetation into Caroline's hands a minute later. Eww, she was supposed to drink this?

* * *

The images fade in slowly when the dream begins and Caroline thinks for a moment that Bonnie's spell hasn't worked, feeling the sensations as she always does, no sight to accompany. But then, then it fades in as if from a fog. A slashed doublet ending high on the waist joins the scent of cobblestones slick with rain; there - two men at an easel, one solicitious, nodding his head reverently. His hair hangs loose, obscuring his face. The other's hair curls tightly in a halo of auburn frizz around his head, as if making up for the paltry mustache that sits almost apologetically below his prominent nose. Caroline circles around to get a look at the other's face and almost screams. It's Klaus standing there, his thoughts and emotions a mess of jealous regard and hope. Klaus with flaxen curls and buttoned breeches and his mercurial mood and _oh my god it all made so much sense now._

* * *

Klaus had sent her an email just before graduation, a companion piece to the voice mail she kept longer than she cared to admit. _Maybe one day you'll let me_ , the subject line blinks at her, Klaus' flair for the dramatic carrying over to an electronic medium. She doesn't look at the linked flickr album this time, knows what awaits her there - beautiful shots of a beautiful city she still hasn't gathered the nerve to visit. She's just after the contact today, pulling up a new window and rolling her eyes at having to type hybridking into the To: field. Seriously? Douchebag much, Klaus? The stab of irritation gives her courage and she taps at the keys of her laptop.

 _Klaus,_

 _So, not sure why you've got me on your dream radar but you need to STOP. It's becoming a little too close to breaking your promise for comfort._

 _Caroline_

 _P.S. Please eat a beignet for me. That picture from Café du Monde haunts my soul._

She hovers over the send button for a good 30 seconds before clicking and jumping away from the laptop like it burns her. OK, that's done, now she just has to wait.

* * *

Klaus doesn't reply that day, nor the next. Her dreams continue and there is something illicit about them - she feels like an emotional voyeur. These aren't things he tries to let others see, although for a 1000 year old vampire she's often marveled at how hilariously bad his poker face is. But maybe that's just around her.

She feels his uncertainty and hurt when Rebekah snipes at him, and then the answering call of righteous anger and fierce protectiveness as he slides the white oak dagger into her heart. She smells the peat burning and hears Kol's whoop of laughter, a stark contrast to the panic and unending hate that accompany Klaus' dogged run from his stepfather. There's a bar and a blond bartender and an idle curiousity, there's a spike of jealousy as a crowd chants 'Marcel!'

It is the next night that almost breaks her.

Klaus is in a small, windowless room and Caroline has just a moment to hear him muttering to himself before the emotions assault her. Rage, fear, paranoia, hunger, anxiety, hate, love, hope, agony swirl about in a confused mess, all tinged with a sense of wrongness. For a moment, she feels her own fear rise to the top as Klaus looks directly at her and focuses, his tone turning plaintive as he cries out to something long lost and long buried. She stutters out an unthinking apology through the aching sense of need that fills her and she raises a hand to comfort, but his eyes glaze and he begins screaming, backing away into the corner against the damp, weeping stone.

He's utterly and completely mad and she feels it all, finally sliding down opposite him and rocking herself back and forth until she wakes up exhausted, pushing through the bathroom into Bonnie's room and crawling into bed beside her.

* * *

The next day Caroline checks her email sixteen times in the space of a minute until Bonnie levels a stare at her.

"Care. It's been 25 years. Maybe he changed his email address."

Caroline shakes her head. "There's no way he wouldn't have forwarded the emails if that's the case. He knew this was the only way I could get in contact with him."

Bonnie turns her mouth down, considering. "Well, he was pretty obsessed with you."

"It was…yeah he would have a way for me to get in touch with him. I'm sure of it." Caroline stands, nervous energy cutting through the exhaustion. "I'm going to see if Stefan has heard anything - can you check with Enzo?" She sing-songs the last bit and winks exaggeratedly at Bonnie, who throws the magazine she was paging through at Caroline's head without missing a beat.

* * *

It is incredibly bizarre to watch yourself in a dream, Caroline decides. Words she's said and forgotten spill from her own lips as she lays on the faux-leather sofa in Elena's living room and Klaus looks away, face hard, mind roiling. Shame, anger, righteousness, a decided effort to push something out that is alarmingly close to concern. Caroline watches her werewolf-venomed, delusional self say things she remembers feeling but never thought she'd say out loud, and Klaus' answering reaction almost wakes her in its intensity.

It is one thing to know that he cares, somewhere deep inside that ancient, scarred heart. It is entirely different to feel the effect of her words on him - that bright bloom in his chest that spreads outwards. It is a song as it reaches its crescendo, a match that flares brightly in the darkest of nights, the tiny hammer-heart flutterings of the hummingbird Klaus once so reverently described.

She wakes up and finds herself sobbing.

* * *

Another week's worth of dreams passes and she sees her dream self again as Klaus says "friends then?" with such hope bubbling up in his chest. She feels the lust stab her in the gut as she walks towards him in the Grill, the little blonde distraction.

Another week's worth of realizing that Klaus has always been honest with her about what he wants.

—–

Bonnie's handing the phone over before the voice on the other end finishes speaking.

"Hello?" Caroline answers, sending a questioning look at Bonnie.

"Perhaps you'd like to pick up your own phone sometime this century?"

"Ah, Rebekah, completely not great to hear your voice. I hope you can tell me where your brother is quickly." Caroline shakes her head at Bonnie, rolling her eyes in annoyance and pulling her own phone out of her purse. Dead. Whoops.

Rebekah's answering tone is cautious, and Caroline has an unwelcome flashback to last night's dream. Rebekah as a girl of seven, long hair in a braid that comes undone as she races through the forest, panic setting in as her brothers hide from her a bit too well.

"Why are you trying to reach my brother, Caroline? We've had 25 years of a blissful Caroline Forbes-free life and I'm disappointed to break the streak now." Rebekah sighs exaggeratedly. "Now we'll have to put one of those 'It's been 0 days since the last annoyance' placards up in the mansion."

Caroline pinches the bridge of her nose, a gesture leftover from her human days, when talking to certain people physically pained her. "Look, I just need to talk to Klaus. He's sending me some weirdly intense dreams." Rebekah interrupts and Caroline makes a shushing noise. "NO! God! Not that kind of dream. More like…like dreams that are his memories."

"Wait, you're saying you see his dreams?" Rebekah asked.

Caroline holds the phone at arm's length for a moment, staring at the display with exaggerated confusion before wedging it once more between ear and shoulder. "Wow Rebekah, you've really lost your edge. Yes, that's pretty much what I'm saying. No matter what time or where I go to bed, and trust me I've tried everything, I dream of him."

"Elijah will be there with the jet in a few hours." _Click._

* * *

New Orleans is as vibrant as Klaus's photos had shown. Flowers twine through the intricate iron latticework of balconies perched over the streets. A block away a blues guitar strings out a high note and a man walking next to them takes a moment to pause in appreciation. A shopkeep calls out in greeting and Elijah, impeccably suited even in the sweltering humid air, responds with fondness.

Caroline had expected to see more beads and drunken fratboys, but when she asked Elijah about it, he responded with an air of distaste, _that_ particular scene was mainly confined to Bourbon Street.

The Mikaelson home is on Chartres, a grand three story house with rounded corners and balconies festooned with that charming wrought iron. If she hadn't been privy to Klaus's dreams for the last two months she would have thought it not very like him, but now she sees it with his artist's eye and understands.

They enter an inner courtyard where Rebekah waits impatiently, signalling them to follow. Caroline had steeled herself, but the sight of Klaus lying asleep, skin grey and mottled shakes her. He looks strangely small lying there in the middle of the bed and Caroline thinks, not for the first time, that it's his presence that makes him seem bigger than he is. She looks back at Rebekah who nods in response and Caroline approaches the bed, kneeling down at the edge.

"How long has he been like this, and what happened?"

"A couple of months. There was a battle with the Strix." Elijah shakes his head minutely at the question in Caroline's eyes. _Later._ "We won with little effort, but that night he went to sleep and hasn't woken since."

Rebekah speaks up. "Before you ask, we rounded up the witches that were still alive and questioned them already. Even after draining vervain out of them, we couldn't get much information. Something about a curse that someone as heartless as Klaus would never break. The witch who cast it was killed by Klaus that night, so no luck there either."

Caroline huffs an assent, trailing her fingers on the sheets idly. _Geez, these must be like 800-thread count._

"This was a bad idea, Elijah." Rebekah's bored façade is crumbling. "If Freya's been unable to find a way to reverse it, there's no way Miss Mystic Falls is going to all of a sudden figure this out."

"Look, I want Klaus awake just as much as you do."

"Forgive me if I don't believe you. A quick fuck in the woods does not a friendship make."

"Rebekah!" Elijah tries to interject, shouldering his way between the two arguing blondes. Caroline is having none of it.

"Well, perhaps it's more than friendship to me. Perhaps I want him awake so he can keep his promise, because _perhaps_ it's been a day, a week, a half a century, and I'm willing to give your brother a chance." Caroline pauses, stunned.

She honestly can't decide if she wants to take back the words or shout them louder.

There's a beat of silence, two, then a slow, shaky breath cuts through the air.. Elijah, Rebekah, and Caroline turn as one to the bed where Klaus lays. His eyes are open and immediately they fix on Caroline's own, searching for something. He must find what he's looking for, because he smiles then, a satisfied grin that drips with a dark promise at the edges.

Sitting upright and glancing up at Rebekah for the briefest of moments, he speaks with a voice rusty from disuse. "I need blood. Lots of it. And then I need you, Elijah and anyone else living here to leave the house."


	9. Chapter 9

**This is the only drabble that remotely approaches M for some light smut. From a prompt by accidental-rambler:**

 _ **Post-canon Klaroline shenanigans (well, as much canon as you like, haha) : Vegas, Caroline and Klaus bankrupt Bellagio but oops, this mob that tries to take them down is on vervain. Slaughter fluff? Or wherever that takes you :)**_

* * *

Caroline loved the Bellagio best. The Luxor was super cheesy, Caesar's Palace run-down, and the lions at the MGM Grand had freaked the hell out whenever she exited the elevators, so _that_ place was a no go.

Plus, there was a graceful beauty at the Bellagio that appealed to her, if one could overlook the patterned carpets designed to hide foot traffic and countless spilled drinks. Something about the ornate Italian marble floors, the coffered ceilings, the fountain arcing up just below her window, the taste of blood drunk on pate and caviar.

She'd have loved to have compelled herself a penthouse suite, but drawing attention wasn't high on her list of priorities. No, this was about laying low, having fun playing the dumb blonde, and fleecing these arrogant hotel owners out of thousands of dollars that she promptly spent downstairs at Balenciaga.

She touched the buttery, sunshine-yellow leather of her latest acquisition and thought it a long way off from her junior-year bid on a Michael Kors bag on ebay. Dressing high-fashion was considerably easier without her humanity. (more under cut)

It had been several months since her mom's funeral, since she snapped Elena's neck and escaped that hellhole of a town. Vegas hadn't actually been the first stop on her list - she'd compelled a plane ride to France and discovered a love for dipping chocolate croissants in B positive. Next had been Amsterdam, where she had been disappointed by the grey skies and the taste of THC-laced blood. Vegas had been her third choice, needing a break from Europe, and having something to _do_ while she was here had made her stay the longest.

She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear and eyed the cards on the table. Card counting really wasn't all that hard, just a matter of observation and keeping a mental tally.

"Double down," she said, placing a $500 chip in the betting circle and smiling at the dealer..

"Double down for the lady." The dealer slid a card across the table, turning it over with a practiced flip. A ten. "And blackjack," he commented, clearing the cards and plucking out a $1000 chip with efficiency.

Caroline gave a delighted squeal, turning to look at her fellow players with the light dancing in her eyes _just so_.

There was Sandra from Missoula, who was "SO EXCITED! TO BE! IN VEGAS!" and Ruben from Sacramento, whose hand was twitching badly from the cocaine Caroline smelled on him earlier. Finally there was Pete, the balding man from Tampa Bay who had already tried hitting on her by asking if she had a boyfriend, replying "That's ok. I'm not the jealous type," when she had said yes to get rid of him. He was totally getting his face eaten later. He'd probably taste like despair and Brylcreem, but some affronts to humanity just couldn't be ignored.

Pete said congratulations to her boobs, and Sandra's enthusiastic smile was starting to dim around the edges as her own pile of chips dwindled. Caroline would have felt bad for her if, you know, she felt anything.

The night continued, Caroline sipping on free Skyy tonics (another perk of the Bellagio) as her winnings amassed. Ruben and Sandra were replaced by a revolving door of players, Pete still clinging to Caroline who was stringing him along until she got hungry - which she was, now that she thought about it, actually. She bet a losing hand, adopting a pouting expression before looking up through her lashes. "Oh no! Looks like I've lost my string of luck. I think it's time for a nightcap, don't you Pete?"

His eyes glinted with surprise, swiftly replaced by what must be his "sexy look" - a revolting leer that she knew dropped to her ass as soon as she stood and turned, chips gathered to turn in at the cash-out booth.

The woman there eyed her with what would be worrisome suspicion if Caroline hadn't been so damned hungry. She had been at the table way too long today. Feeling a presence over her right shoulder she turned, expecting to see Pete, instead seeing a swath of suited men, earpieces squawking commands.

Shit.

"Miss, we'd like you to come with us."

"Hey now, we were about to have ourselves a nightcap," Pete said, puffing his chest out.

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to leave the area. We need to speak to the lady." They closed around Caroline, a circle of navy wool and starched pinstripe. Caroline's heels clicked on the marbled path as they passed the poker tables, the roulette wheel, an old lady tugging at the arm of the nickel slots. Caroline was plotting her next move, deciding it would just be easier to compel them all, when they shoved her none-too-gently into a small room. She turned to look back, peering out through the one-way glass at the blinking lights of the casino.

"So, Miss…Gilbernett is it? _She knew getting those fake IDs had been a good decision._ This is your first time here at the Bellagio?" The speaker was a wiry man sitting behind a video console, who now spun his chair to face Caroline.

Caroline thought fast, decided to admit the truth. "No, I love the Bellagio, actually. One of my favorite haunts in Vegas." She smiled brightly, giving away nothing. She wasn't close enough to compel him, needed to find an alternative.

"Sure. I bet it's your favorite because you've been seen counting cards here for the past several months on and off." The man leaned forward, shirt straining at the shoulders. "We don't like card counters here."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about?" Caroline looked about confusedly, spotted her first victim, a young guy with a sharp jawline and high cheekbones. _Yum_ , she was going to come out of this with her money _and_ someone to warm her bed. Her pupils contracted, dilated as she continued. "I haven't done a thing wrong, and you're going to let me leave." The young guy stared back at her. "You're going to let me leave, destroy your security file, and not remember anything about me." He broke into a grin, raising his brows as if in salute.

"Nice, got all your bases covered, yeah?" He scrunched his face, snapping his fingers as if just remembering something. "Oh wait - except for the part where the hotel security staff is on vervain."

"Do you think us ignorant, Miss Gilbernett?" The man at the console said, leaning forward as if genuinely curious. Caroline drew in a breath as she felt the pointed end of a stake lodge just under a shoulder blade. Heart level.

Shit. This was bad.

"I'm sure we can come to an agreement, boys. I mean, card counting isn't strictly illegal."

"Yeah, well killing people is. We've been tracking your body count around town. Pretty low for a vamp, if I'm being honest."

Caroline shrugged in response. Talking was buying her time to think. "Yeah, well, it's always smarter to not draw attention. Which clearly I failed at here. How did you catch me?" She asked, curiously.

The man at the console stood, reaching into a metal locker next to the console and pulling out some ropes, the reek of vervain stinging Caroline's nostrils. "I don't think so, Miss Gilbernett. This isn't your interrogation. This is ours, and we have _lots_ of questions."

* * *

The grey-haired lady felt a breeze on her arm as she tugged the slot machine's arm down for the three hundredth time that evening. The wheels of the slot clicked into place one by one, the familiar sound sending her heart thumping.

 _Click_

The wheel settled o .

She missed the muffled shout of alarm from behind the door just ahead of her.

 _Click (Boom) (Boom)_

The second wheel stopped at B A R. Her heart thumped faster. She hoped the machine wasn't breaking down, it sounded weird.

The third click wasn't quite loud enough to drown out the screams, but the electronic dinging as the thir lined up on the wheel certainly was. The old woman held her bucket out, coins rushing in as the door in front of her opened and a man's scream cut off, his body falling forward. Something wet thwacked against the visor sitting on top of her grey curls, rolled off and into the bucket. The body disappeared behind the door, pulled by some unseen force.

Bucket filled, the old woman looked up to see a blonde woman, dressed to the nines with a bright yellow bag with a red splatter pattern on it, emerge from the room with a fierce-eyed gentleman whose hand splayed across the girl's back. The old lady gave a tentative smile in answer to the blonde's sunny grin as the couple passed the slots.

Later, the brunette at the cash out desk would scream bloody murder and clap a hand over her mouth, retching at the still-warm human eye in Mz. Westler's bucket of coins.

* * *

"Thanks for the save," Caroline said, gazing at him up through her lashes. The scent of blood clung to them both, and she was turned on beyond belief. She slid closer to Klaus, the backseat of the limousine Klaus had commandeered separating them too much for her liking. She placed a palm on his chest, walked it up to where his collar lay open.

"Caroline." His tone was playful warning. "What, pray tell, do you think you're doing?"

"Don't you want to have some fun?" She pouted, lifting a leg over to straddle him. He sighed and clenched his jaw as she shifted in his lap, trying to get closer.

"Caroline, you know I want nothing more than to touch you, but you're not in the right state of mind."

She rolled her eyes, beginning to ride his thigh for lack of something better. She slid the straps of her sundress down and unzipped the back, the material falling to her waist. "You're seriously going to pull that one on me Klaus? What, you think I'll regret it when I turn my humanity back on? I'm right here, right now. I want you. I _know_ you want me," she said with a smile, reaching down between his legs and cupping his growing length.

Klaus yelled at the driver to stop and tugged Caroline out of the car as soon as the wheels began to slow. They were in an industrial section of the city, looming warehouses and the soft hum of streetlights broken up by the cadenced whispers of corner drug deals.

Her back slammed against the aluminum outer wall of one of the buildings and Klaus was on her before she could even react, lips nipping at the pulse point in her neck, hand reaching to wrap her leg around his hip.

"Caroline -" his voice was a reverent whisper, her name strung out like pearls.

"Do you know? Do you even know? How when you come to me, I will make your pleasured screams echo? How you'll know nothing but desire pooling at the touch of my fingers, my mouth, my cock until you're drunk with sensation? How then I will fuck you into the ruins of the city that I'll tear down in your name?" His tongue traced the edges of her bra, swiped over the lace.

"Sounds like you want to try to fuck the humanity back in me. So why aren't you moving?"

She felt his smile curve against her breast. "Because there's no need." He pulled back and cupped her face, searching her eyes. "I smelled your fear even outside the room, Caroline. I know the scare forced your humanity back. What I really want to know, Caroline, is why you're still pretending you _don't_ _have it_."

She drew a few breaths, senses still heightened from Klaus' sensory assault. "Because I knew you wouldn't do this if I just had gotten my humanity back, and right now?" Her face crumpled. "I still want to forget."

He closed his eyes, hands still framing her face. When he opened them again, Caroline's breath caught at the rawness in his gaze. His breathing was harsh, as if he was trying to get himself under control. "Caroline -" he started, then inexplicably smiled and shook his head. "I can't do that. I can't help you forget, knowing that you'll curse my name in the morning."

She shoved his hands away, tugged at the straps at her dress. "You know what? I'm tired of everyone else making decisions for me. And I didn't think I'd ever lump you into that category, Klaus."

"What are you saying, Caroline?" He stood, apart, but something in his stance made her receding steps falter.

"I - I need another night to escape this. I know it's not forever, I know I have a ton to deal with. But I need another night, and I trust you, Klaus."

There's a moment, as they stared at each other and the streetlight murmured and the drug pushers pushed. There's a moment, and it is stretched out through time as all moments fraught with meaning are.

There's a moment, and later, Klaus _insists_ she was the first one to break it as she surged forward to meet him.


	10. i drown and think of you

**from a tumblr prompt by purestheartslove: "Caroline is Silas!"**

 **NOTE: I struggle with not wanting to promote myself, but the alternative is not to thank others for taking the time to nominate me for awards, so...I've been nominated for the Klaroline awards in a few categories, one of which is best short drabble from the 'cover hog' piece in this drabble collection. There are a lot of categories and a lot of new talent to discover, so regardless, please check out the awards and vote for your faves, and thank you to those of you who gave me a shout-out. It's quite touching to know I've made some sort of impact.**

* * *

Caroline can't seem to forget the feel of his hand on the small of her back, the way his broad palm cradled the curve in her spine. It's funny what you tend to focus on when there's already so much else you're trying to avoid. Like his words, shoved in the back of her mind, 'however long it takes', and the warmth of his breath before his lips touched her cheek. Like the unwelcome pinprick of tears she felt at this confession, at his promise.

The crunch of gravel brings Caroline back to the present, Stefan turning on the road that circles the lake, Silas' body thudding dully in the trunk. Caroline glances up as Lexi's voice turns soft from the passenger seat. She has one of those expressive faces - her eyes narrow in concern even as the tail of her words curls up in hopeful question, and Caroline zones out again, trying to give them space. She's glad that Stefan gets to have a last hurrah with Lexi before the veil lifts, but she saw something in his eyes shift when they heard Elena's impassioned speech to Damon earlier, and she isn't about to let him be alone tonight.

She glances down at her phone, thumb sliding in the unlock pattern unconsciously as she checks for a response from Tyler. She's already making plans in her head. They'll attend homecoming and chase each other through the straw stacks, he'll get a single and she'll sneak past the R.A. for hot hybrid college sex, she'll major in Drama and practice her lines as he ghosts a kiss on her cheek with those full lips and -

Damn it. She's _not_ supposed to keep thinking about Klaus, so of course her brain ignores her, flashing again to the pressure of his hand against the small of her back, and she sucks in a breath that has Lexi turning in her seat. Caroline shakes her head, giving a small smile and Lexi arches a brow before turning her attention back to Stefan. Turning to look out the window, Caroling tries to tune out the conversation but Lexi is there one minute, gone the next, and Stefan is suddenly without his best friend again.

She really expected more fanfare when the veil lifted, to be honest.

She cuts Stefan's weary sigh off by crawling up front, knee catching on the gear shift for an awkward moment and earning a startled "Caroline!" from Stefan. She turns Miss Mystic Falls on full-force, words streaming a mile a minute in time with the road - the power of distraction - and feels gratified when a small smile flits across the stone of Stefan's expression as he pulls up to the cliff.

The truck's engine cuts off and the murky stillness of the June night descends, Stefan hauling Silas' body from the back of the SUV before Caroline is even out of the cab. It's from a distance then that she hears the rough clatter of stone, an exhale of surprised breath, a cracking noise that sounds _way_ too much like a neck snapping for comfort. She whips around the truck, fangs descending to face the threat until she notices who's standing there.

"Elena, seriously? Don't you think you've tortured Stefan enough today?" Caroline can't see Stefan, but doesn't blame him for running off.

"What, and waste one more good chance to rub it in?" Elena kneels on the ground, picking up and tossing a chunk of plaster in her hands like a baseball. "That would be no fun."

Caroline's eyes widen. "Silas?"

"Ah, brains in a blonde. I've heard that's a strange thing. Need to get caught up on modern humor, of course. A few millenia in a dessicated state and all of a sudden Philemon isn't with the comedic times anymore. Shame."

"Look, I don't have the cure, so whatever you're looking for, you're not going to get it from me." Caroline stalls for time, inching back towards the car. Silas-as-Elena shifts her stance, lights up like a devil in the shine of the tail lights.

"Oh, I know how you worry about never being the one, but in this case - " Elena's form blurs and Caroline finds herself staring at her own face - "it's actually _you_ I want."

Caroline looks unimpressed. "Cute, but my hair looks _way_ better."

"I don't think you get it, so I'll explain for the children in the room. When I was trapped by Qetsiyah's spell, nature had to find a balance. That's you, my doppleganger." Silas moves too quickly for Caroline to react and she feels the shock before the pain spreads. "Hello my shadow self," Silas quips, dragging the coffer out of the back of the SUV and tossing Caroline's limp form in.

Caroline wills herself to heal faster but she's already trapped inside, the tumblers locking into place with finality before she can draw breath to move. She hears the skittering scrape of the metal over the rocky ground before her heart lurches and she's falling, falling, falling, body slamming against the floor and ribs cracking as the safe thwacks into the water.

* * *

 **New Orleans**

Klaus closes his book, a collection of Greek comedies he had hoped would help slow the racing of his mind long enough to catch up with his own thoughts. He'd always expected his return to New Orleans to be triumphant; the son who had finally won his father's cruel race. Instead he's been tormented with that wolf girl, witches, and _babies_. He scoffs for the thousandth time tonight.

At least the city itself has welcomed him back with open arms, he thinks, half-drunk on blood steeped in the bottom of countless shot glasses. His mind retraces the curves of the intricate iron balustrades in the Quarter, the weathered wood of the French doors that splay open wide in the evenings welcoming the coolness of night. He pictures the tumble of ivy and the fat blooms of hibiscus and files them away as things to show Caroline when she's ready to accept his offer. _Caroline,_ he stretches out her name in his mind, remembering the soft flutter of lashes, the smile that was more than just gratitude. He had meant what he said on that graduation stage, meant every word, and he had seen the promise of it reflected back in her eyes. If only the witches had known an ill-conceived voodoo child was no match for her.

He leans back against the bed's headrest and thinks of her scent, still fresh in his mind. He wonders if she thinks of him, and knows the answer deep within, for otherwise his words would never have escaped his hopeful heart.

He's told her they're the same, and he wonders when she'll realize he's right.

With her scent thick in his mind, he thinks of her laugh and those impossibly long legs beneath that graduation gown. He remembers that backless black dress she wore when distracting him at the Grill. He thinks of his ill-gotten kiss and how much he wants to repeat it, in his own body this time, and as his cock stirs against his leg he thinks to himself _ahhh, much better than the Ancient Greeks._

* * *

 _"Just turn it off, " Damon says without sparing her a glance._

 _Caroline knows she's hallucinating, but she still feels her irritation flare at his almost bored tone. Wasn't it torture enough to die a hundred times today as the water soaked her lungs and her breath bubbled up in its last gasps?_

 _"You won't care about the pain, won't drive yourself crazy with knowing you're out here and no one will even think to look." Damon continues, shading his eyes from the late-setting sun that colors this nightmare._

 _"Someone will find me," Caroline says. "Elena - or Bonnie, or Stefan; Matt, or Tyler. And if Silas stays in town, Tyler will know it's not me."_

 _"You sure about that, Blondie?"_

 _There's a long pause, filled with the weight of her insecurity, before Caroline answers in a small voice. "No."_

* * *

Klaus only pays half a mind to Marcel's boasts, more focused on the growing sense of unease that started just after he returned from Mystic Falls. _Darkness_ , he thinks, _echoing darkness and cold dread_. He couldn't tell you how he knows, but he's sure the feeling is connected to _her_ and it's all he can do not to speed the 900-something miles back to that accursed town. He hears a question in Marcel's voice and has enough presence of mind to utter an idle reply that he just _knows_ will dig under his once-protege's skin, choosing that moment to take his leave. He needs to focus more fully on the true problem at hand. Back at the Mikaelson's second home at the edges of the city, he pulls out his cell and taps her name.

"Why are you calling me?" Caroline asks.

"Caroline," Klaus breathes. There's an awkward pause as he holds back his question, something in him tensing in warning.

"Yep, that's me. So since you won't tell me why you're calling, how's tricks in New Orleans?"

"'Tricks', as you so eloquently put it, are fine, love. I wanted to see how you were doing post-graduation veil-lifting," Klaus says carefully. Something doesn't seem quite right.

"Oh you know, Stefan's brooding, Damon and Elena are off screwing like bunnies." She sounds distracted, and Klaus can make out the sound of a small crowd in the background. "Look, is there a point to this or are you just being creepy stalker Klaus per usual? Because I have things to do."

Klaus lets a note of hurt anger enter his voice, playing the part. "Fine, but you can't slide between the light and the dark forever, Caroline." He hangs up the phone before her response, not wanting to speak any longer to who he's quite certain isn't Caroline. And if it isn't Caroline, well there's just one supernatural being it could be. Which begs the question - if Silas is pretending to be Caroline, then where is the real one?

* * *

 _"Caroline."_

 _Beneath it all she will never get tired of hearing him say her name. She stares at the painting in front of her, her eyes caught on the reflection of trees in the silvery water._

 _"Caroline," he repeats, tone colored with amusement._

 _"What is it, Klaus?" She welcomes the snap of anger for its absolution of her guilty thoughts. She clasps her hands in front of her, fingers sliding down her wrist when the slippery satin of the gloves makes it hard to catch a hold._

 _"Do you know when I first felt the stab in my chest of what you once so unerringly described as love?"_

 _Caroline shakes her head slightly, rolling her eyes at his mannered speech, and one side of his face lifts up in a quick grin._

 _"I wondered at it, the feeling. Like reading a poet's words that thrum in your soul as some lost part of you shifts back into place, like hearing the Staatskapelle Dresden echoing Mozart off the walls of the concert hall; alike, but yet so…different." Klaus closes his eyes, hums softly for a moment - Caroline recognizes the tune with that sense of shock that comes from a lost childhood memory suddenly regained. Her father had played her this piece, once; a lazy Sunday drive with classical music a benediction soaring out the windows into the brisk fall air, and Caroline wonders how she could have ever forgotten that moment of peace._

 _Klaus opens his eyes, as if he knows she's distracted, and her gaze snaps back almost guiltily to meet his own._

 _"It is a feeling I kept from myself, through necessity, through the years of blood and hatred and my erstwhile father's dogged pursuit. It is not a feeling for you to lose. Stay with us, you have to stay with us. Stay with me."_

* * *

Klaus' mood splits the air ahead of him like a ship's prow cleaving the sea, eyes flashing as he approaches the witch. _Sophie_ , he thinks, the witch who dares entrap the hybrid with a _baby_ of all things. He sneers and Sophie has the good grace to shudder at the wildness in his eyes.

"I need a spell to keep someone out of my mind. Do that, and I'll do as you ask."

Sophie scrunches her nose in confusion. "Witches don't really do much mind-control, Klaus. It's not natural to break a person's will."

Klaus stares at her dully and repeats in a snarl, "Give me the spell, and I'll make sure Marcel is removed as a threat, and Davina is returned to your coven."

"O-kaaay. Well, can you tell me more about what you need?" Sophie puts the bar between them and Klaus lets her keep the pretense of safety. He nods at her unspoken question and she pours a measure of scotch, sliding it across the smooth lacquer of the bar.

"I need a way to fool someone into thinking they can control my mind, when in actuality," Klaus raises his glass in a toast, "I'm still quite myself."

Sophie runs a rag along the bartop, deep in thought. "Hmm…like I said, messing with freedom of choice is against the natural order." Her eyes narrow at Klaus. "Just what kind of witch is this?"

Klaus clenches his jaw before making a great show of pretending to read an imaginary document he holds in the air like a royal decree. "Let me check the terms of our agreement. Oh see, there's nothing here about the need to explain myself. Funny that, since you seem to think the opposite." His eyes snap to hers. "I advise you to get to the point."

"OK, OK, so there's something we could try, kinda like the Harvest ritual actually, a way to pool things - in this case your thoughts - into a specific place in your mind. That way a piece of you could stay intact." Sophie snaps her fingers as an idea sparks. "And we can alter a secrecy spell, use sage in the ritual to hide that place so no one will even know it's there. "

Klaus measures her for a moment, ancient mind weighing her intentions, before giving a nod and downing the rest of his scotch. "We'll do the ritual tonight then," he announces, slamming the empty glass down and sauntering away confidently to the sound of Sophie's feeble protest.

* * *

 _Two hospitals now in the suburban Atlanta area are reporting blood thefts that have taken place under mysterious circumstances. The robberies both occurred during the transport of donated blood from blood drives to local blood banks, the drivers arriving at their destination with a truckload of suddenly empty blood bags. Atlanta's Police Chief, Richard Pennington, issued a statement earlier today and we have Tracy Flanagan on scene to report._

 _Thanks Russ. Police Chief Pennington's statement confirmed the crimes Atlantans are referring to as the "Vampire Robberies", and stated that while all leads are being pursued, there are currently no suspects. The chief was confident that a suspect would be identified soon, and asked for any witnesses to report via the Crime Stoppers hotline at 404-577-TIPS._

Liz tunes the rest of the news report out and glances at her daughter from the corner of her eye and stirring her coffee in an unconscious movement. "That's a little too close to home. Have you guys heard anything about a new vampire coven in the region?"

Silas stares back and lets out a drawling reply. "Nahh. Unless it affects Elena, I'm pretty sure no one will care."

Liz studies her daughter, eyes wandering across the planes of her face before catching and widening almost imperceptibly. Silas lets out a strangely pleased laugh, blond waves framing her face as she ducks her head with a grin. "Ahh so mother's intuition _does_ count for something. Took you long enough to figure it out. Ah ah ah! Don't move." Silas wags a finger at Liz and the woman freezes with a hand halfway to her holster.

"Sorry about being so obvious with the whole blood stealing thing, but I've really been quite peckish, and I find myself impatient after 2000 years in the ground." Silas stands and starts arranging Liz's frozen limbs, settling on a pose with the sheriff's arms signaling a touchdown. "Better than a mass killing spree though, wouldn't you agree? That's all rather déclassé and personally, I'd like to set a better example. A villain with class and wit and," Silas smiles with Caroline's Miss Mystic Falls smile, frames her face with upturned palms, "beauty of course!

Anyways, I do ramble. It's pretty clear you know nothing about the cure, but it's equally crystal that the Salvatores do. So I need you to stay quiet about who I really am." Liz nods slowly in understanding as Silas heads to the door. "Oh! I almost forgot. I'm really craving snacks lately, so be sure to eat lots of iron-rich food. Toodles!"

* * *

Caroline jolts alive, a vampire reborn. The water is heavy in her lungs, the air is long gone from her breath, and she knows she has moments before the pain and suffocation set in. It's barely a conscious thought anymore, to go to that safe place in her mind, that place that takes her away from this harsh reality. Closing her eyes, she lets herself slip into the sweet relief.

 _"You know, you never told me your hopes and dreams, though I could venture to guess." The night has just fallen, and they sit across from each other on a familiar bench outside The Grill._

 _"Oh, so you think you have me pegged, do ya?" Caroline's voice is teasingly curious._

 _"Well, you've made it abundantly clear that you'll have the college experience, replete with mini fridge. Majoring in Drama, starring in the musicals, I'm sure, with that lovely voice of yours." He smiles at her and she blushes in pleased embarrassment. "But after? I think you'll travel the world, Caroline. I can see the wanderlust deep within emerging, I can see you starting to make itineraries with that analytic mind of yours."_

 _"Oh don't get all cocky on me, Klaus. I've been interested in travel before you ever mentioned Rome, Paris or Tokyo."_

 _"Good memory." Klaus smiles in triumph and Caroline internally facepalms, covering up her revelation with a question._

 _"So where would you travel, if you could go anywhere, no worries of vengeful witch covens or dopplegangers you've tormented," she asks, a bit of sullenness entering her tone. Even in dreams, Caroline's not going to let Klaus get away with everything._

 _He surprisingly doesn't take the bait, so focused on the question. The eyes that have been tracing her face now arrow to her own and she feels her undead pulse jump._

 _"Mont-Saint Michel. It's an abbey off the coast of Normandy, inaccessible until the tide lowers to reveal a path. I always think of the laborers, dragging stone across the causeway, fighting to beat the rising tide in the name of their God." Klaus pauses a moment, and there's something so fiercely wanting in his eyes that Caroline has to quell an instinct to raise a hand in comfort. "There is something there, in those that chose an austere life so completely cut off from the world until the water beckons. There is a magic in it that speaks of both simpler times and the truest devotion. Something in it calls to me," he finishes, face solemn._

 _Caroline lets his words stay for a moment, still caught up in the pictures they elicit. There is a moment of companionable silence before she lifts her head, brows knit together in thought. As she opens her mouth to ask the question that's just dawned, she starts to choke, water pouring out of her mouth in gouts, the sea come to reclaim its own once again._

* * *

"God, Damon, you're really a piece of work, aren't you? How'd you get everyone to ignore the fact that you've compelled two women to have sex with you?"

Damon hides his surprise with a slug of whiskey straight from the bottle. The Grill is dead tonight, just a few college kids playing pool in the corner, and Matt's way more inclined to break the rules when there aren't people around to witness. "I thought we'd been over this, Blondie. I'm sorry, and I'm not proud of what I did."

"Only because Elena isn't, but honestly, she didn't take much convincing to basically forget the whole thing. Anyways, this is just an outside observation. I mean look - I get the whole being in love thing - I've spent 2000 years of pining for my true love. I win!"

Shock freezes Damon the second it dawns on him that this is _not_ Caroline, and Silas raises a hand in faux victory, slamming her palm on the smooth wood of the bar. "So yeah, I know what people will do for love. I'm thinking we should play a game. I'm not even going to control your mind - or am I?" Silas claps her hands together before spreading them, palms up.

"Here's what you're going to do. You're going to forget this conversation happened, but you're going to bring me back - Katherine, is it? You're going to let me drink Katherine dry, because if you don't, I'll take Elena with me to the Other Side when I return." Silas looks up to the ceiling in exaggerated thought. "Or maybe I'll just take her anyways - as vengeance for Caroline!" She gives a short bark of laughter. "Oh, who am I kidding, it would just be for fun and sport. I'd like to see someone else plot to save their truest love for a change." Silas shrugs delicate shoulders and rises, a bounce in her step as she heads out of The Grill.

Let it be said for Damon Salvatore, he wore nonchalance like a second skin even in the face of panic. Rising with only the slightest shake in his hands, he palms his phone and calls Jeremy.

* * *

Klaus probes at his own mind as if carefully prodding a toothache. He can feel the walls separating his mind from the tiny space where his true self is wound tight, the thoughts snarled around each other in a dark knot. It is a bizarre feeling, this separation, but he is glad he can feel it nonetheless, for it is tangible proof that the witch's spell has worked and he has a chance of defeating Silas' mind games.

Sophie has also cast a locator spell using the bracelet Klaus gave over with a small smile of remembrance, and it is that trail Klaus follows now, glancing at his phone as the miles fall away. The coordinates are as precise as he could get, Klaus having pushed the witch until she passed out, nose bloodied and burst capillaries tinting her left eye crimson. Elijah had pulled him back from the edge then with a hand on the shoulder and a whispered promise, "we'll find her," and Klaus had railed at the compassion he saw in his brother's gaze, for it was far too close to pity.

So he drives alone, and as the 'Welcome to Mystic Falls' sign brightens in the shine of his headlights he pushes his thoughts and his plans into that tiny space in his mind - separate, protected.

* * *

 _"How can you be so sure?" she asks, not meeting his eyes. The air is thick with the lemony smell of late-blossoming magnolias, and they're sitting on a bench…again. Perhaps that's their thing._

 _He tips her chin up to meet his eyes - he's not going to let her avoid these words. "I've lived a thousand years, Caroline." She waits for more, but it is his stare that continues to say everything she needs to know._

And it is this that she focuses on as the choked spasms herald her death once again, and she finds herself distracted by a new pain, a wanting ache in her heart.

* * *

The safe scrapes on the shale of the quarry lake's bottom. It had taken Klaus a few hours to find her, the sediment-muddied water making it difficult to spot Caroline's underwater tomb, but at last he's found it just as the sun's rays pierce the veil of the morning. He laughs at his thoughts' poetic license - how appropriate - pushing the safe up to the shore and pulling away fronds of aquatic ferns that have wrapped themselves around the safe. Staring at the box for a moment, he has half a mind to stab a rock through the safe's wall, but his worry for Caroline's safety has him planting an ear to the wet metal instead. He listens as the tumblers click into place and then the door opens and he takes her into his arms as she stirs, weakly choking on water still trapped in lungs, arms flailing about in panic.

Something in him breaks and he combs her hair back from her face, whispering fiercely. "Shhh shhh shhh, It's ok, it's ok, it's me. It's ok, you're safe."

He feels her calm for a moment in his arms before a spasm wracks her body, wrenching her out of his grip. She drops to her knees, water burning her ravaged throat as she retches. It's several long minutes before the tremors cease and he kneels down next to her, biting into a wrist and offering it up. She looks up at him, disoriented, and he can see the question form at her lips, quelling it with a shake of his head.

"I'll explain later. For now you need your strength. Drink from me, Caroline."

She must truly be weak, for she sinks her fangs into his wrist without further protest, the slow suction giving way to a deep pull that has an inappropriate groan catching in the back of his throat. She pulls away delicately, a forgotten hand still gripping his wrist as realization flashes across her features.

"Oh my god my mom, is she ok? What about Bonnie and Elena and Stefan and Matt and oh my god how long was I trapped and Silas she's me and - "

"Silas is after the cure in Katherine, not your friends. If they refrain from doing something stupid, they'll be fine. Which, well, come to think of it, you should fear for their lives." Klaus smiles at Caroline's affronted noise. "I came straight to you. I'll check on your mother soon, but for now we need to get you someplace safe."

* * *

Caroline sneezes as soon as they get inside. The mansion is musty with disuse and the furniture looms in its dusty white sheets like a crowd of old-fashioned ghosts. She looks up to stare at the familiar curve of the double stairway.

"God, I think the last time I was in here was for the ball your psycho mother held."

He glances at her with an unreadable expression then turns back, motioning them towards the living room with a cock of his head. His voice drifts back to her. "I remember it well, Caroline."

He hands her a glass of scotch the moment she sits down on the leather sofa. "So a few things, and I need you to not fight with me on this, Caroline." He raises a hand to stop her protest. "Please." She nods more out of surprise at the word please coming from Klaus Mikaelson's lips than anything else, but her mind is a whirl of feelings right now regardless. She's trying to reconcile this Klaus with the one that kept her sane while she died a hundred deaths. She's not finding many differences.

"Wait - what's the date? How long have I been out?"

"Assuming Silas put you in the safe the same night I left, it's been six days," Klaus answers.

Caroline nods her head absently, then gives a brief shudder. Klaus flashes in front her instantly, face concerned. "What is it?"

"I just…it's going to be a long time before I can go near the water again. Which sucks because I just bought the cutest bathing suit ever." She looks up at Klaus who grins at her before moving back to the doorway. "Oh. We were gonna check on my mom and my friends, right? Let's go." She starts to push herself off the couch, feeling the weakness in her movements.

"No, Caroline. We can't let Silas know you're alive. I'm enspelled so that Silas can't see inside my mind, but the jig is up as soon as he sees you out of that safe. You have to trust me. I will not let Silas harm your family or friends." His tone isn't pleading, simply matter of fact, and Caroline finds that she does trust him. And she always has, she realizes.

* * *

When he returns, Caroline's curled up in an armchair, reading. He sees evidence of her activities; the curtains ruffling in the afternoon breeze, a few empty blood bags sitting on top of the cooler he had dragged in earlier.

"Your friends are safe, although Bonnie is not in Mystic Falls. Your mom…is not in grave danger."

"Why did you pause? What's wrong with my mom?" Caroline's poised to rise, hands planted on the chair.

"Silas is living with her in the guise of being you. I'm not sure if she's under his control, but it would be safe to assume that's the case."

Caroline processes his words, and her eyes skitter away from his when she asks the next question. "So Elena didn't seem worried? And where is Bonnie? Did you check on Stefan and Matt too?"

"They had no way of knowing you were trapped in the quarry, Caroline. Silas has them all fooled."

She relaxes at this, and her eyes swing to his. "But how did _you_ know?"

Klaus takes a moment to answer, idly tracing the condensation on his scotch glass as he considers. "There was a weight in the air, like something precious was lost. And I could think of -" he pauses, turns away. "All I could think of was you, and this sense of danger that dragged at my limbs."

Caroline stares a moment before nodding sharply as if making a decision. "So how do we do this, then?" She makes a disparaging noise. "Or rather how do _you_ defeat Silas by yourself while I sit here and read -" She flips the book in her lap over - "Philemon's _Androphanos?_ Seriously, no wonder you guys left this book behind. It's horrible."

Klaus' smile turns strangely wicked at her mention of Greek comedies and she puts the book back down, face flushing. "What?"

"Oh nothing, just a particularly good memory. But as for the plan, you will very much play a part. We have to wait until Silas drinks the cure from Katherine before killing her. Your appearance will serve as the perfect distraction to give me a chance to kill Silas' then-mortal form. Although…" He pauses, glancing up at her in concern. "Are you ok with that role, Caroline? I don't want to presume."

Her heart lurches in its confines and she smiles at him, a smile so soft that Klaus finds himself itching to capture it in graphite. "Of course, I want to help. I kinda helped bring Silas to life, what with the twelve dead witches and all."

They're doing so well that Klaus hurries to speak, not wanting her mind to linger on that night and remember his cutting words in the woods. "Yes, well, the one problem is Katherine. Having chased her for close to five hundred years, I know how cunning she can be."

Caroline slugs back a measure of scotch, refilling her glass and lifting the bottle in a question to Klaus. He nods and she reaches over, pouring. "Yeah, well she's human this time. And I bet you anything she went straight to Damon and Stefan to try and sweet talk them into helping her."

Klaus makes a connection, eyes flashing. "I think you're right, Caroline. Elena was on the phone with Jeremy when I checked in, saying something about an old campground."

"Oh right, I went camping with the Gilberts once. Once was enough, give me a hotel room any day. But yeah, I know exactly where it is. Shall we lead Silas to it?"

* * *

Jeremy lies crumpled at the bottom of the hill, his leg bent at an unnatural angle, and Caroline winces in sympathy before moving on through the woods. She can hear his heart beating strong and knows he'll be ok, and right now time is truly of the essence.

A high shriek - Katherine's voice if she's not mistaken - cuts through the stillness of the woods and Caroline follows it, crashing through the brush, uncaring of the noise. They only had one chance at surprising Silas. She's close enough now to smell the blood, rich and thick and mingling with the smell of damp earth. She slows her movements, wanting to be sure that Silas consumes the cure before she surprises him.

In a few minutes, she comes across a fire ring smoldering, a thin wisp of smoke rising from the embers, and Caroline turns to a small cabin where the scent of blood is the strongest. She takes a deep breath, eyes searching for Klaus. He is nowhere to be seen, but she knows he's there, the consummate predator poised to strike. She opens the cabin door and Silas is on the floor, Katherine pooled in his lap, head lolling to the side. It's so strange to see Katherine in such a vulnerable position that Caroline almost gives up the element of surprise in her own distraction.

"Hello, my shadow self," Caroline says, watching as Silas' head whips up, flesh tearing away from Katherine's neck with the swiftness of the move. "Wow, you're certainly not a neat eater. Surprised to see me?" She's terrified that she's come in too early, that Silas may still harbor his extraordinary powers of mind control, and she braces herself. But the veins underneath her mirrored face fade to porcelain, and the fangs recede to human teeth once again.

But Silas is still a witch, and the ringing pain that blossoms in Caroline's head is proof. "So who got you out of that safe, hmm?" Silas circles her doppleganger, eyeing her slowly up and down. "I would think it Bonnie, were she not dead." At Caroline's shocked gasp, Silas laughs, "Oh you didn't know, that's right. I forgot to rub that in when I locked you in the safe. Which was clearly a missed opportunity." Silas holds one hand up. "Duly noted."

Caroline tries to think through the numbing pain. Klaus was certainly taking his time. "What do you plan on accomplishing, Silas?"

"I have a simple plan if _you idiots would just stop getting in the way._ I will reunite with my love, feed her the cure that now runs in my veins, and kill us both in a beautifully tragic double suicide. Like Romeo and Juliet, but with less misunderstanding and more gayness."

"But why kill everyone, why torture my mom?"

Silas shrugs, and Caroline rages internally, strangely focused on the fact that Silas was wearing her favorite patterned blouse. She'll have to burn it in effigy once all this is done. Caroline is on her knees now, wailing with hands pressed to her temples, the pain worse than any she's experienced. She wonders if her brain will melt, or explode, or implode, then suddenly it's gone as quickly as it appeared and Klaus stands with a heart pulsing in his fist, Silas spinning away from his grasp in a macabre dance before falling dead to the ground.

It's over. It's over and her mother is safe and she wonders at Bonnie's fate and her chest rises and falls with the weight of this moment where she's worked with a hybrid she once spurned with such righteous fury. His eyes flicker with something unnameable, as if he sees her conflict, and he turns to go, stopping only when she calls out to him.

"Klaus -" He turns to her and waits, and her voice holds a tremor when she speaks again, but she is head cheerleader, she is Miss Mystic Falls, she is Caroline Forbes and she will not shy away from the truth that's been staring at her in the face since she was left for dead in the bottom of a quarry bed.

"I dreamed of you, you know. In the lake, I almost turned my humanity off, but every time I thought to let go of the pain you were there, telling me not to. Not Elena, not Stefan, not Bonnie, not Tyler. You." She rises from the floor and stands in front of him, cups his face with a shaking hand. He stands completely still, banked movement held under tension, and watches as she draws close. Her lips are inches away when she pauses and a frisson of fear shoots through him, as if she's about to turn away with a sour word and a cutting glare.

But she doesn't. Her thumb swipes across his full lower lip and her eyes stare into his own.

"You," she says again, wonderingly, and then her head tilts and his mouth opens in a sigh to meet her own.


	11. Voices Carry

**I was binge watching a season of Top Chef and the finale was held in San Miguel de Allende. After deciding I had to travel there someday, a random plot bunny to have Caroline there as a vamp hunter set 80 years in the future emerged. Who the hell can ever say what will inspire lol.**

TW: allusions to child abuse and child death. Torture.

 **Voices Carry**

* * *

When it looked like a trap and it sounded like a trap, it probably was a trap. Not that it mattered, because Paolo here was going _down_. Caroline's ballet flats slapped a staccato rhythm on the cobblestone streets as she chased the dark-haired vamp through alleys unchanged by time. They were heading out of the city, the bright walls of red and saffron yellow a blur as the incessant bells of San Miguel de Allende sounded, the speed of the vampires' chase dopplering the sound into a dull whine that rose and fell as the streets flew by.

The imposing grey stone walls of the Sanctuary loomed before them, starkly lit in the moonlight, and Caroline lifted her brows in curiosity. She had actually been meaning to check this place out, might as well get a bit of tourism in while killing this shitty excuse for a vamp.

Paolo wrenched open a massive wooden door, the chains that bound it almost hitting Caroline who followed closely on his heels. He seemed calm, which furthered Caroline's suspicions that she needed to end this fast. With a burst of speed she drew close enough to reach out and grab the collar of his shirt, twisting to the side and using the momentum to send him flying back the way they had come. He skidded on the worn flagstone before hitting the door they'd just entered with a resounding thud. She rolled forward to slow her own momentum, coming up in a low crouch, gun raised at the vamp. She fired and Paolo hissed with pain, caught up in a web of vervain-soaked fibers that pinned him to the door.

Caroline walked calmly to face him, nudging Paolo with a toe as smoke rose from where his skin touched the bonds. "So, nothing to say? No last pleas? Insistence that you'll never treat humans like toys again? I'm disappointed, honestly."

He spit blood, his swiftly-healing face making the action seem incongruous. "I've heard about you."

It was an odd response, but Caroline didn't let it phase her. "Good, because I'm here to kill you, and this way I don't have to explain things," she said, her eyes tracing the arched curves of the building's interior. She really needed to come back and see if they had a tour sometime.

Paolo spit out his next words, the derision almost palpable. "You're Klaus' girl. So either way, I have a death sentence."

She dropped her gaze back to him in a flash. Klaus' girl? _As if._ She hadn't even seen the Original for the past eighty years, so what the hell was this about? She mentally filed the information for later - her and Klaus clearly needed to have that boundaries talk again. For now, she needed to focus on the puzzle of Paolo's words.

"What do you mean, either way?"

Paolo didn't answer, his breath stuttering in his lungs as a rumble of low growls sounded behind her. She turned slowly, distractedly noting the shine of gold that crowned the archways, before meeting the latest threat.

Ten wolves, hackles raised. Paolo had just run her into a werewolf camp on a full moon. Death sentence indeed.

* * *

Caroline staggered in through the guesthouse door, plastering a smile on her face at the night manager and praying he didn't notice anything was amiss. San Miguel de Allende still held to the ideals of an earlier century, and humans worked jobs that had since been resigned to machines in the rest of the Western world. While she normally loved Mexico's old-world charm, she certainly didn't tonight while she had a bite mark's searing pain and oncoming delusions to try and hide. Luckily Rubén was caught up in some visor-game, the light playing across his irises, and he merely nodded at her as she headed out through the courtyard to her room.

Once inside, she dug in a pocket of her suitcase and pulled out a small vial, unscrewing the cap and giving into a moan as Klaus' blood hit her tongue. Even aged, his hybrid blood was unfairly delicious. Now she had two reasons to stop by New Orleans, and she wasn't sure if she was dreading the trip or looking forward to it. When it came to Klaus, it was always a little bit of both.

She yawned a gape-mouthed yawn and laid back in bed, sticking one foot out the end of the coverlet. Even with the cure coursing through her veins, the wolf bite had exhausted her, and any thoughts of Klaus would have to wait until after sleep claimed its due.

* * *

 _ **Paolo was one of mine, love. Have a care whom you kill.**_

 _ **Yeah well Paolo was a douchebag that tortured humans. Have a care who you hire to be your lackeys.**_

Caroline was propped up against the 32 pillows guesthouses always insisted on putting on beds, woken a few minutes earlier by a housekeeper's tentative knock and writing her irritated text response with sleep still blurring her eyes. She eyed the vidscan screen, tapped send, almost picturing his amused grin when he received it. Despite everything, Caroline knew when things mattered to Klaus, and Paolo wasn't something that mattered. Even without her certainty, there was the simple fact that…wait a second…how the hell did he know she was the one to kill Paolo? She tapped out another response:

 _ **Do you mind not having someone creep on me wherever i go btw? And why did Paolo call me your girl?**_

 _ **Did he? I'm merely interested in your activities, love. You've grown into a formidable vampire hunter. If I weren't immortal, I might be a bit concerned.**_

Caroline sighed. If she were being honest, their shared past continued to mean way more than it should; she knew she had killed other vampires for doing far less than what Klaus had done just in Mystic Falls alone. It wasn't something she liked to think about, honestly. So she didn't, ignoring his text for now and typing one to Evie, the witch who had clued her in to Paolo's antics.

 _God, that had been a nightmarish scene_ , she thought, _humans forced to fight each other to near-death_. Remembering the meat hooks where the losers of the fights hung, their screams compelled out of them as vamps took hunks of their flesh in their bloodthirst, she shuddered. The broken, damned look in the victor's eyes would stay with her for a long, long time, and it was with a sense of grim satisfaction that she clicked send.

 _ **Hey girl! Alls well in San Miguel (i rhymed!) and that dickwad is gone forever. Any news?**_

Caroline had gone through a bit of a lost period twenty years ago when Bonnie had finally succumbed to old age, Enzo cradling her in his arms, his easy charm traded for grief. Bonnie had been her last real connection to Mystic Falls and her old life, and the loss of her had been devastating. Caroline had traveled aimlessly for a bit before finding herself in Lisbon, Portugal, where the salt air and the friendship of a young witch had brought her back from her depression. Evie was _amazing_ and had a grudge the size of Texas against vampires who treated humans like food alone, and Caroline found that she agreed. Seriously, it wasn't _that_ hard to live on blood bags and the occasional gently compelled sip from the vein while still treating people like, well, people.

Caroline glanced down at her vidscan; it was just like Evie to call instead of texting back.

"Fuck yes! Did you kick him in the junk for me?" If Evie's accented lisp hadn't been enough to make Caroline smile, the excited grin stretching across her holo-ed face did the trick.

"Nah, I only do that for the pervs, you know this," she responded, pulling back the coverlet and swinging her legs off the bed. Might as well get ready while she talked.

"A girl can hope right?" Evie responded, her image reaching up to absently run her hand along the shaved side of her head. "Anyways, things are quiet for once, it's weird. My divinations are turning up nada." She sounded almost disappointed and Caroline understood. Since they had teamed up, there really hadn't been a dull moment between training, research and hunting down the worst of the vampires. She knew that staying busy helped Evie cope with the loss of her family, gone all these years to a vampire's cruelty. Yeah, the girl had every reason to hate, and Caroline was just glad that Evie had accepted her. It was more than she could say for her mom at first, or Matt.

Running a brush through her hair to get the worst of the tangles out, Caroline summoned a peppy tone. "I'm sure something will turn up. Oh! Before I forget! We're gonna need a new werewolf pack entry in the database, right here in lovely San Miguel." Her voice twisted sarcastically at the end, and Evie picked up on it, her eyes narrowing.

"Don't tell me you got bitten."

"Yup."

"Ugh." Caroline and Evie had been like sisters for the last twenty years, so Evie knew what this meant. "Do you want me to go pick–?"

"No," Caroline grimaced at how fast she interrupted. "I mean. It's ok. I'll do it. Just..please have an assignment ready for me when I'm done. I'm pretty sure I'll need it." His promise still rang in her mind after all these years, but she knew she still wasn't ready to explore what it meant.

* * *

Annelie Lund was proving to be a thorn in Caroline's side. The vampire was crafty, choosing to avoid Caroline's attempts to draw her out of hiding. And make no mistake, Annelie had to die. Caroline didn't think she'd ever be able to shake the image of those children's sightless eyes, their bodies stacked neatly in rows. Shaking her head violently, Caroline looked down at her vidscan again. She couldn't get used to visors - the graphics weren't up to speed with vampire vision and it always made her feel disoriented, so she kept to old-school technology mixed with a little bit of Evie's magical know-how.

The GPS dot blipped on the screen, right under the dot for Caroline's own location. She huffed in frustration and scanned her eyes up the stolid red brick of the building to the tower that stood silent watch over the city, its patinaed roof a bright mint-green in the rainy Copenhagen sky. Maybe she'd see something from the tower, some sort of clue?

"I hear the ruins underneath Christiansborg Slot are quite fascinating." Caroline was ready to level a glare at whomever was interrupting her work when the accent hit her.

"Klaus…what are you doing here? I told you I'd stop by to pick up the cure after I was done here."

He smiled at her, dimples cutting and brows raised high. "I thought a personal delivery was in order, since you cancelled our meeting. There are plenty of werewolves in Copenhagen, love." His smile grew bigger at the set of her jaw and he looked up at the tower, clasping hands behind his back. "And I must admit your chosen profession intrigues me, Caroline. Never met Annelie, though I have heard of her. I can't say I've ever been a fan of killing children," he glanced her way, "although I won't say it hasn't happened, I find it a bit in poor taste." He paused, considering. "I suppose pun intended."

"Ugh, Klaus, look. I'm in the middle of a stakeout."

"Oh yes, of course. Well, don't let me stop you, although you seem to be stalled a bit here. Did I mention the ancient ruins underneath the palace?"

Caroline's glare made Klaus' lips twitch, which only incensed her more, but time was of the essence and he had just given her the best lead she'd had in hours. She was willing to swallow her pride, just this once. "Ok, fine! Where's the entrance to the ruins?"

"Follow me, love." With a final smirk that Caroline swore she was going to wipe off his face _someday_ , he sped off, and she followed.

The two blurred across the lawn, circling around the palace buildings that now housed the Danish Parliament. A tour guide and several chaperones were desperately trying to corral a group of kids wielding wooden swords and shields. Their joyful cries of mock battle lent Caroline a grim determination - so much lost already, and so much to be saved. She caught up to Klaus with her jaw set, dipping in beside him as he pulled open a pair of heavy iron doors set into the ground. A pig-tailed soldier's playful screech covered the protesting shriek of the metal and the two vampires ducked into a small, low-ceilinged room.

Klaus dropped back a little, letting her lead, and the trust in the gesture was strangely touching. They moved through an archway, rough-hewn stones forming the walls of the tunnel beyond.

She whispered back to him, "Annelie may have compelled children to fight for her. Just please don-" She cut herself off. If he was going to trust her, she needed to trust him. Her own gesture wasn't lost on him - his eyes were soft when she glanced back.

Other than their whispers, the ruins were remarkably quiet, with just the wet smack of water dripping on stone breaking the silence. They pushed forward, Caroline choosing a path on instinct when the tunnel forked. The floor of the tunnel had just given way to packed earth when Klaus stilled her with a gentle hand on her hip. She looked back to where he held a finger to his lips, his eyes narrowed as he strained to hear something that only his hybrid hearing could detect. He looked at her then, almost pleadingly, and she motioned him forward to lead, appreciating that he had bothered to ask.

She studied his back in the dim light - they had long since left the tourist section of the ruins, but every hundred meters or so an LED light glowed dully. He was still all lean muscle and preternatural grace, and Caroline caught her breath in memory of those shoulders sliding underneath her hands.

It was a poor time for the distraction, and Caroline kicked herself mentally when she felt hands grabbing at her leg from behind. She swung blindly, knocking herself free and turning to face the threat. He couldn't have been older than six, his fangs almost comical in his child's face, hissing at her in anger. She couldn't bring herself to touch him and ran after Klaus who had stopped at the next fork and was peering back into the gloom.

Caroline had expected compulsion, but seeing this tiny vampire shocked her into silence, only her eyes showing her conflict.

"He can't be saved, Caroline," Klaus said gently. He shook his head, not dropping his gaze from her own. "He won't learn or grow, his brain hasn't a chance to develop past the cognitive abilities of the age he was turned. And those base thoughts are heightened - _want_ and _need_ and _mine_ and _food_ and - " his eyes flicked to just beyond Caroline, "- _mother._ "

Annelie called out in a high, girlish voice, walking into the low light of the tunnel's fork "I see you've met my sweet James." She glanced up at Klaus, taking his measure before turning to face Caroline, who watched as the tall, skeletal form coiled and sprung, landing with an unnatural grace steps away.

Caroline dipped down in response, circling a leg in a low, sweeping kick that Annelie stepped gently over, as if playing jump rope. But that was fine by Caroline, the move was merely a feint - she shifted her body weight to her opposite hand, using the reversed momentum to send her leg curving in a brutal upward arc. It shattered Annelie's cheek with a sickening crunch and the vampire wailed in anger and pain. Klaus stood, eyebrows in his hairline, smiling with a sort of bemused pride.

 _That's right,_ she thought, _I didn't spend ten years learning Hung Gar from a vampire Sifu in China for nothing. He_ _ **should**_ _be impressed._

A mere second was eons in vampire time, and young James latched on with tiny teeth to her right forearm before she could even stand up. Klaus peeled the child off of her, murmuring quietly, "it's a mercy, Caroline." She didn't - she couldn't look back, instead approaching Annelie, trying to keep the momentum. But Annelie had other ideas, vaulting off the curved wall and launching herself at Caroline with a surprising fury.

Caroline had a split second to react and dove forward instead of falling back, diving just under the other vamp and feeling the score of fingernails scratch through the fabric of her shirt. She stood and spun to face Annelie once more, and it was her turn to snarl now. She fumbled at her waist, reaching for her vervain net, but Annelie was too fast for her, vaulting once again across the curved passageway and knocking Caroline to the floor. She pinned her hands to the ground and reached down to grab the gun, examining it with exaggerated interest before shooting it point blank at Caroline's face.

Even with plenty of practice in her vampire life - way too much, if you asked her - there was still no getting over the fact that vervain hurt. Fired in such close quarters, the fibers of the net dug into her face, and she could barely see through the smoke from where vervain burned her skin. She took a deep breath and held it as a means to channel her focus away from the crippling pain and shot her arm out in a block, sending Annelie's next attack flying wide.

Caroline knew she had to change the angle - with the bony vamp leaning over her there was no way Caroline could get the leverage she needed to do any damage, but she was also glued to the damn floor by the vervain net so her options were limited. She swung her hips up and wrapped one leg around a jutting hipbone, the other leg banding high across the vampire's shoulder blades. Pulling with both legs, she levered the skeletal body forward, then down onto her locked arm, the momentum giving enough force to punch through the vamp's ribs. Caroline felt the heart's fragile beat fill her hands a second before she tore it out of Annelie's chest.

* * *

Klaus was staring at her, and the years melted away.

Sitting in an outdoor café that bordered Nyhavn canal Caroline stirred her cappuccino, using it as a foil to hide her reaction. She thought back to a time when that stare - that strange mix of vulnerability and affection and unshakable regard - had made her question her loyalties.

Eighty years later and those Mystic Falls loyalties seemed so far away, but her ties to humanity remained just as close, and Klaus wasn't exactly the poster boy for valuing human life. She wondered if she'd ever stop being confused at how deftly he straddled the line between everything she ever wanted and nothing she remotely wanted to know.

"I appreciate your help, but I can do this just fine on my own." It was a nicer way of doing what she always seemed to do around him - lash out to avoid her own feelings. She watched his eyes dim and he glanced away as a tour boat puttered by, tinny speakers telling tales of mermaids and kings.

"So I suppose thanks aren't in order then?" His jaw was clenched and his face impassive, but she knew his tells, and he was more hurt than anything else.

Caroline sighed exaggeratedly and he looked at her, his brows knit close as she responded. "I suppose I should have been around more to help you work on those friendship skills I taught you." She pretended to ponder for a moment. "Ok, well actually, maybe you have shown me I can trust you."

It was as if the dark look had never crossed his face, and she could even hear the smile in his response: "Well I _did_ save you from Annelie's minions."

Caroline shuddered. "At least some of them were older. I couldn't - how could you do that? Turn a child?"

Klaus' eyes turned thoughtful as he sipped his coffee, a breeze from off the water blowing hair back off his face. "Loneliness. The unbearable stretch of time through the ages is not something easily borne."

After the brief time she had spent as a vampire, years that still seemed as vast as an ocean before her, some part of her understood and she nodded. It was why she got into vampire hunting, after all. "Purpose is hard enough when you're a human - I wasn't even out of high school when I had my first existential crisis."

Klaus grinned at this, and leaned back in his chair, motioning for her to continue. His shirt gapped at the movement, and Caroline spotted the necklaces that had featured heavily in some dreams throughout the sometimes lonely years. It took a moment for her to respond, and the bastard knew _exactly_ why, if the shift in his smile from pleased to predatory was any indication.

She wet her lips and felt a deep sense of satisfaction as his lips parted involuntarily and his legs shifted. Wait, what had they been talking about again?

"Well, when I was cheerleading -" Caroline didn't think anyone would blame her for throwing that mental image into the mix. -"I thought about it a lot. I don't know. I think everyone goes through it, like 'what is life for' and all that. What are we doing here, really? It's hard. To know if there's a reason, or if there's even _supposed_ to be."

She looked up at Klaus and despite everything, her reservations and the fear that had kept her from seeing him for eighty freaking years and her doubt that he would ever fundamentally change, despite all these things; there he sat, caught between arousal and interest, and she almost moaned at the look of him.

"And what do you think now, Caroline? When you're alone at night and the thrill of the hunt has ebbed, is it enough, or do you crave something more?" His tone, laced with innuendo, brought the unbidden image of her in a thousand guesthouses, sheets curled around her legs as she pleasured herself.

There had been lovers over the years, of course, but much of the time was spent alone, romantically speaking. Because really, despite how crazy it sounded, it was close to impossible to trump the heat between them and the memory of the sexual prowess of a thousand-year-old vampire who seemed to care only about _her_.

She fanned herself with her napkin unconsciously. This was seriously the most sexually-charged philosophical conversation she'd had…in well…ever. And this is why she avoided him, their chemistry had always been off the charts, and that attraction threatened her tenuous hold on what she actually felt for Klaus.

And now he was here, staring with his thousand year stare, cutting right into the heart of her. It had been eighty long years already, she thought. There really was only one thing to do.

"So, Evie said the next vamp is in Paris," she said, twisting her lips in exaggerated consideration. "Wasn't there someone who said they'd show me around Paris? Or was that Rome? Maybe Tokyo?" She looked up through her lashes, a grin sliding into place, and watched the light in his eyes dawn.

* * *

"Wait, you haven't been in New Orleans for how long? Thought you and Hayley's love child brought out your nesting instinct. Knitting scarves and whatnot as you ruled the city, the big bad baby king."

Klaus miraculously took the jab for what it was, jealousy, rolling his eyes in a dead-on Caroline impression. They sat across from each other in Klaus' Paris apartment, a cozy two-bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Seine.

"My 'love-child' was merely a now-deceased witch's joke, Caroline. And truth be told, Elijah and Rebekah are more suited for, and interested in, the political machinations involved in leading a city, so I left them to it. Conquering's the only part that matters, and what fun it was." His eyes grew faraway, snapping back when Caroline fidgeted in her chair. He studied her for a moment before speaking again. "The wolf-girl meant nothing more to me than leverage, Caroline."

"You think that makes it better? I know what it's like to be used, Klaus." Her eyes flickered down and another piece in the Caroline Forbes puzzle fell into place. He made a mental note to look into it later.

"Do you think she used me any less?" he responded, lifting a glass of scotch to his lips, the ice clinking against the glass.

"Why _her_?"

Something in his heart twisted at her stubborn refusal to drop the subject. He heard the doubt, the insecurity, and he would actually recognize it as well if he let himself. His mind raced, searching for the right thing to say, and all he could think of was the most honest thing. "Because I knew it would hurt you, in the end, as much as you hurt me."

His voice was soft, if not remorseful, but it was enough. Her eyes lost their brittle sheen and she turned back from the window in which she had been steadily avoiding his gaze.

"I'm going to see if Evie has the tracking spell ready. Meet me at in a little bit?" He nodded cautiously and she smiled, relieved. She needed some time to think.

* * *

Caroline hadn't realized how far she had wandered, finding herself by the gates of the Moulin Rouge, several miles from the apartment. But who could blame her? The sun was out, the air was crisp with the promise of fall, and the curling, sensuous Parisian accent slid along her bones like a caress. The famous red windmill turned in front of her, hologram garishly bright and stretching way up into the sky. She was a bit disappointed at the tackiness, but it was short-lived as the sound of a street musician's voice filling the air distracted her. The road was split by a small park in the median, and there a young man sat singing, his eyes closed in passion. The voice rolled over her and she approached, sitting next to him on a small, grated pedestal.

There were times when you didn't need language to communicate, and this was one of them. She felt the man's grief, his sorrow, his love, his passion and his pain and she let the tears fall from her eyes, thinking of her conversation with Evie.

* * *

"You brought him _with_ you? To Paris?"

Caroline could almost imagine Evie's incredulous expression crowned by that halo of baby-pink hair. She had the vidscan set to audio only as she waited in line at the corner creperie, and watched as the attendant spread batter on the griddle with a practiced sweep of his hand. "Yes, Evie."

"I'm just…look, I've heard about the Mikaelsons. They're the baddest of the bad."

Caroline had cringed. This was Mystic Falls all over again. She couldn't validate her feelings for a monster. God she really couldn't, could she?" She closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears welling as she tried to focus on what Evie was saying. She owed her that much, even if it hurt.

"…but I also know you, and I trust you. It's just…look. Tell him that I have a spell that will make him piss fire for a thousand years if he fucks you over."

Something in her chest had loosened at being given both trust and a choice, and Caroline laughed, but Evie's voice remained like steel. Adorable-sounding steel, but steel nonetheless. "I'm not joking. You'll tell him, yeah?"

She had mumbled a yes with an accompanying unseen grin and changed the subject, her heart light. "So, Julien? What's the story on this loser?"

'Ne Me Quitte Pas -'

A small crowd had gathered, and the sound of change clinking in the musician's tip jar almost drowned out this last whispered refrain as the song drew to a close. Caroline was so mesmerized she didn't notice the man just behind her until he clamped a firm hand around her upper arm and whispered with an almost distracted-sounding calm in her ear.

"Vampire hunters shouldn't let themselves be caught out in the open, now should they? Come with me, mon chou." Before she could try anything his grip firmed and he whispered lowly in her ear, his thick accent making her strain to understand. "I have no problems to eating everyone on this street if you cause a scene. Now come with me."

Caroline nodded and rose, turning to look at her assailant's face. Large, beaked nose, heavy-lidded eyes, a cruel thin twist of a mouth. Julien. His eyes looked far colder here than in the holo Evie had sent, if that was possible. She looked for an out as he steered her through the crowd, away from the bustle of Moulin Rouge and off onto a series of side streets. She tried to twist away as the crowd thinned, but his grip was firm and he grabbed her other hand, effectively cuffing her behind her back, muttering what sounded like a fiercely derogatory curse.

Julien's file was fresh in her mind, so Caroline stopped struggling to focus on her thoughts, adding a defeated set to her shoulders to hopefully lull her captor into a false sense of security. This vampire had escaped notice for years, his controlled style keeping his killings mostly out of the public eye until a feisty and _extremely_ lucky Paris University co-ed managed to gnaw through her bindings and escape to tell chilling tales of decaying corpses and cruel tortures.

Julien was methodical and exact, so Caroline would just have to shake his composure.

"Soooooo, do you think you can really get away with killing me?"

He snorted at her opening gambit. "It will be as easy to kill as finding you, Miss Forbes." His English had the odd phrasing of the non-native speaker. "You have a reputation, _salope_ , and I knew you come for me."

Caroline shook her head, nonchalant. "Oooh a reputation, sounds fun. So! What's good here. Dead bodies, some torture, what've we got?" She bounced on the balls of her feet, her tone chipper. He glanced at her with confusion, but ignored her. It was a start.

They ducked into a building so abruptly that Caroline had to take a moment to get her bearings in the darkness. The smell of blood hit her first, thick in its age, and she let her monster come out, giving a little moan and licking her lips. Julien blinked twice at her before pulling her along through a narrow hallway, passing a number of closed doors. She could hear weeping behind one of them, and almost gave herself away with the angry tension that filled her. She decided to pass it off as excitement instead; perhaps playing the vamp fatale would work with him.

"Ooooh! Do you have a toy to play wi-?"

She was interrupted by his unceremonious shove into a cement-floored room, a drain set prominently in the center. The scent of blood was strong here, and Caroline's fangs, still out, ached.

"Did I not say I know you? Your games are worthless." He leered at her a moment, eyes tracking up from her feet to rest on her breasts. "Although you _would_ be fun to play with."

Caroline pretended to shake with revulsion, curling inward, using her finally free hands to tap the still-hidden vidscan tucked into her skirt's lining. She sent up a silent prayer that Evie was monitoring the channel - they hadn't planned to go after Julien for a couple hours yet.

Communication - check. Hands still free to attack? Check. She launched herself at Julien, fist drawn back to strike and he calmly sidestepped her, shoving her head into the now-closed door, the metal ringing like a bell. She rolled to the side and kipped up, meeting the gimleted stare of an irritatingly calm Julien.

"Now, now, there's no hope to fighting. But I do think you need to calm." Reaching over to a switch on the wall, he flipped it, calmly exiting and shutting the door with a clang that rang through the room. Caroline was bewildered until she heard the hiss of the sprinklers above her and vervain began to rain down.

* * *

"What do you mean she's in trouble?" Klaus' voice cut like a blade across the airwaves.

"Look, don't shoot the messenger. And did she tell you about the pissing fire thing? Because that's still on the table."

"Quit with your incessant prattle and tell me WHERE CAROLINE IS!"

"You don't need to yell. The vidscan has her at Roo R-U-E Clawsel C-L-A-U-Z-E-L? In the ninth arondissi- however you say that word. Give me your vidscan code and I'll send the coordinates over." Evie paused for his response, speaking again over the clatter of what sounded like an ancient keyboard. "Klaus, Caroline's been my best friend for a long time now. Please."

Klaus choked out an acknowledgment before hanging up and letting rage fuel his vamp-sped course across town.

* * *

Julien knew the fine art of torture, turning off the vervain spray and letting her heal before setting off the sprinklers again and repeating the cycle. At the moment they were off once more and her skin was red and mottled, open wounds starting to form as her vamp healing lost potency from lack of blood. The door opened and that dead, hooded stare greeted her. She sensed something in it this time, though, some satisfaction that lit up his gaze at seeing her so damaged. She turned her back so that the wound on her shoulder was visible.

His voice held a sick pleasure in it when he spoke. "So the great vampire hunter has been brought to her knees by a poor ploughman's get. Wonders do not cease. Do you wish to beg for mercy, mon petit? Or maybe you join Magritte in the other room? I think she would to like the company, if you can of course control your hunger."

Seriously? This guy's definition of homework was totally child's play or he'd know that her control was impeccable. The realization pushed away the fear and she let her monster emerge, black veins stark on skin paled from vervain's assault. A grin flickered on his face for a moment and he slapped a pair of plasticine cuffs on her, soaked in that same hellish substance. Her wrists burned, but Julien had clasped them in front of her so she had free range of motion as he moved her out of the room and down the hall, closer to the weeping she had heard earlier. Caroline knew this was her chance, while he thought her confined and weak from vervain's sting.

She spun quickly, looping her cuffed hands behind Julien's neck and launching herself at the wall, climbing up and over, using his neck as a pole to swing around. She ended up at his back and pulled the noose of her arms tighter, choking him for a moment, keeping him off balance. She knew she couldn't win a war of strength with him now, so dropped in a backwards roll and pulled her arms off his neck, using her legs to launch him into the air.

Julien cursed as he slammed into the ceiling and dropped to the floor, laying unmoving for the precious seconds Caroline needed to pull her hands through the cuffs of the plasticine, biting back a wince of pain. Her wrists were raw and broken now, slow to heal with the vervain still on her clothes and soaking her hair. She needed to get out of here, fast, but she couldn't leave that poor human behind to die. She ran forward, launching herself at Julien who was rising to standing. He caught her fist in his own, crushing the bones in her hand as he stared daggers at her, his composure finally cracking.

Caroline was not _nearly_ down for the count yet, drawing close and delivering a vicious headbutt, but she became disoriented when the lights abruptly winked out. Behind her, Magritte screamed in her room, terrified by the sudden darkness. The drip of vervain from Caroline's sodden clothes echoed on the cement. A sharp crack sounded like a gunshot in the close quarters of the hallway, and Julien's grip loosened and dropped. Her breath rattled and shook and she almost cried out in relief when she felt herself pulled against a familiar lean frame.

* * *

Three bags of B+ and a caps-lock conversation with Evie later, Caroline lay back on the couch, trying to relax.

Klaus still roiled with a cold anger, his jaw set and the darkness an almost tangible thing that filled the room. Caroline sighed.

"Look, I'm safe. Julien is dead, everything is good. Can't you just chill?"

Klaus met her gaze swiftly, with an almost affronted air. "Just 'chill'? You almost died, Caroline, I could smell the vervain burns from outside the house."

Caroline rolled her eyes. "I've been vervained a thousand times, Klaus, enough to use it as a verb. At a certain point you push past the pain. I still had a chance to take him down, and I would have." She softened as she looked at him, his face shuttered in a cold defense. "It was certainly a lot easier when you came in though, not gonna lie. Thank you, Klaus."

There had only been a few times she had _ever_ thanked him, and his reaction each time had been one of shy wonder. It was much the same now, eighty years later, and her heart flipped at his boyish grin. This monster with his heart on his sleeve would be the death of her. She patted the smooth microsuede of the couch next to her and Klaus sat, slowly wrapping his arm around her when she snuggled into his side.

She needed comfort right now, rubbing her head against his shoulder as she sought the perfect position. _I guess eighty years is how long it takes_ , she mused to herself sleepily; the low murmur of the TV lulling her and Klaus' hand rubbing slow, tentative circles on her back, as if he couldn't quite believe she was in his arms.


	12. Chapter 12

The idea for this came during au week and I also wanted to write something for kickassfu's bday a month ago now and holy writer's block batman.

I quickly realized this could be 10k+ words, so made an attempt to keep this short, telling the tale in brief, loosely-connected scenes. Unbetad and barely read through so i can just freaking post. Please let me know what you think, I admit to feeling like I'm doing something wrong sometimes, because I just don't get reviews like others do. Even if I AM doing something wrong, that's ok to tell me too. I'm not going to improve if i don't know where I'm falling short.

* * *

Caroline forgets on a Thursday.

The tendrils of sleep feel like they're clinging to her more strongly than usual, and she scrubs a hand across her face. What is it she's supposed to do today? She yawns, stretching her arms out, mind racing and trying to grasp on anything and failing. What is she even doing here? She looks at her surroundings - a hotel room, the air conditioner whispering quietly in the corner, the bed soft and plush - somewhere expensive then. She's alone, no dent in the pillow next to her, which somehow surprises her. OK. Phone? Phone. She picks it up from the end table and swipes it, breathing a sigh of relief when her thumbprint unlocks.

Opening up her recent calls there's an incoming call from someone named Cam the day before, as well as a call to a Bonnie, who has ICE next to her name, made three weeks prior. Ok. Not as much information as she had hoped. She opens the messages, finding a similar state. A lot of recent texts with whoever this Cam is, including a rather final sounding 'Do not contact me again'. Pissed off, she presses call. Clearly Cam is a lost cause, but maybe he? she? can tell her some basic details.

"I told you not to call me ever again." The voice sounds nervous, almost afraid.

"Yeah well I woke up in a hotel room with no idea who the hell I am or why, so thought maybe you could bend the rules, _Cam."_ Caroline spits out his name like a curse - she's scrolling through past messages from him, catching some fervent 'I love yous' and heart emojis. How quickly love fades.

She hears a sigh on the other end, then an awkward pause before Cam speaks again. "I am sorry, Caroline. I love you, but I cannot. Talk to Bonnie, your friend. She will help." The line goes dead.

Seriously?

Caroline scrolls through to the Bs, finding her last text from Bonnie a few days ago.

 _ **Wish me luck! Can you believe ME on a witchy nature retreat? Ugh…for a good cause though. Will text in a few wks, this place is in the freakin boonies.**_

Yeah. Well. That's just great. Caroline sighs, flouncing down on the covers on the bed. OK, so today was November 17, 2016. She had some texts in 2013 from Elena, some this year from a Stefan who apparently is another ex, a few from some guy named Damon who's contact picture and snide texts immediately make her hackles rise.

And another name, last contacted in 2012, but with a paragraph-long return message sitting in her drafts, unsent. She scans through it - _you said you were willing to wait, however long it takes -_ and hovers over the call button before deciding against it.

Back then, he'd been in New Orleans, and from the sound of the texts he had meant to stay for a while. She's never been to visit as far as she knows, but there's certainly no time like the present.

* * *

Klaus is struck speechless on a Saturday.

She stands before him, eyes pleading and studying his face for clues. The crashing wave of disappointment when he realizes her showing up at his door isn't the clear message it should be is hidden quickly away behind his eyes.

Because then his thoughts swiftly whip to the other end of the spectrum. A clean slate. With Caroline. His mind whirls with the promise of it.

* * *

"What can you tell me about me?" They're sitting in Klaus' well-appointed sitting room, a crackling fire throwing shadows on her face.

"Well, let's see. Your hopes, your dreams," his tone is teasing but Caroline is having none of it.

"Forget I asked," she grumbles, turning her face away to watch the flames.

He clears his throat, discomfited. Even without memories Caroline still makes him question the right things to say. He stares down at his clasped hands.

"You are fiercely loyal. You value those you love beyond compare and would do anything for them, sometimes at the expense of others."

She's turned back to face him, and her brows furrow at his words. "That last part doesn't make me sound like a very good person, then."

"Oh but you _are_ Caroline. Because loyalty is a rare thing, to know that regardless of what a friend says or does you will stand by their side." He cuts her off before she can interrupt, a finger raised to illustrate his point. "You don't let them get away with it, trust me, but you Do. Not. Leave." Klaus turns his head to stare at the wan sunlight filtering in through the curtains, as if avoiding his next words, spoken with a rasp. "Perhaps even when you should."

The crackling fire is the only thing to break the silence that descends, Caroline lost in the mystery of his words and wondering at his tone. The air has turned melancholy, as if the very room is mourning the loss of something unidentifiable.

It pisses Caroline off.

"No offense, but could you be less cryptic? I came to you for help."

Her tone spreads a smile across his face and he leans forward in his chair as if ready to tell the greatest secret.

"You were Miss Mystic Falls, 2009, and in order to secure the lofty title, for it was indeed, you resolved to aspire, inspire, and persp-"

The pillow, thrown with vampire force and irritation, knocks his head back.

* * *

Other than his bouts of melancholically-cryptic flights of fancy, Klaus is being nothing short of a saint. Everything he says jibes with what she's read about herself in emails and texts, and the details are starting to flesh out more and more. It's still not the same as remembering them, but it's a start, and Caroline can only be thankful.

Bonnie is un-findable without whatever Caroline's lost memory holds, it seems. The witches in the quarter seem to know about the retreat Bonnie's on, but all admit that the location is only given to those who attend, in some top-secret-ridiculously-close-to-spy-levels of secrecy.

And the amnesia itself? Turns out Cam, of heart-eyed emoji fame, knew _all_ about why she woke up clueless, and it also turns out that Romani curses made because you were fucking the widowed son of a chieftan are nigh on unbreakable, even with a coven of witches at your disposal.

* * *

"Gahh! You can't just speak about people like they're some new species of plant you read about on the internet, Klaus!" They're sitting in Klaus' study, and he's been idly discussing the fate of some locals who had dared to question his authority. "They're real people with thoughts and feelings, they aren't some experiment to observe and dispose of when you're done. Ughh no _wonder_ my past self was on the fence about you."

Klaus' head snaps up at the last part, eyes laser focused, and she realizes her mistake too late. "What do you mean you were _on the fence_ about me, Caroline?"

Caroline tries to look away, she really does, but there's that mix of vulnerability and promise in his eyes again and you know what? She doesn't remember enough to know what she's supposed to hide and not hide, what she's supposed to protect. So she plays it cool while still giving him a piece of the truth. "I had a draft in my texts to you. It was dated eight months ago, so clearly she…I wasn't prepared to send it. But it's why I came to you, because that text made it very clear she trusted you."

Klaus' eyes are greedy as he asks, "May I see it, Caroline?"

Caroline considers his request and shakes her head. "It would be like betraying myself. I - she - clearly wasn't ready to send it. But look -" her face softens as his own falls, and she reaches over to place her hand in his own, "-like I said, she trusted you, and as someone that…knows myself…god this is confusing…that trust means a lot." His fingers instinctively curl around hers and they both stare at their entwined hands as she continues. "I see you trying with me. I know it's not natural for you, and to be honest I'm pretty terrified of why that is, but I see it and it means more than you know."

* * *

Klaus' rage isn't far from the surface. He holds it in check with a thin veneer of composure, which is only there on the off chance that Caroline will walk in and see him. Although she wouldn't be fooled. Never her. And that's what enrages him, because he has plundered kingdoms, watched the light die in a thousand pairs of eyes, seen banked horror descend on a crowd of faces, scoffed at the disappointment that dims his siblings' gazes, and nothing has felt like this since he was human.

Not since he was freshly turned and just realizing the limits of depravity and its profound effects on the human soul. Not since he dismissed those feelings because his own soul was human no longer.

How _dare_ she. His heart pulls in unconscious answer to the hope in her eyes, and he knows he has to tell her. Knows he has to let her choose him, every piece of him, or none at all. Because he is a monster and there is no denying the truth of that.

And so he reminds himself, to purge the guilt that stabs in his stomach, because she _will not_ control this part of him.

The wolves of the Bayou Lafourche never see him coming.

* * *

Klaus confesses on a Tuesday.

He is more nervous than he has been since he can remember, because having Caroline here, learning the intrinsic parts of her without the baggage of past decisions, has been nothing short of perfect. He sees her, the way her eyes brighten when he enters the room, and his disused heart has ached with the joy of it.

But now she stands in front of him, and she's rolling her eyes familiarly at how _broody_ he's acting and he cuts her off with a sharp word and tells the tale to end this folly.

And she listens, eyes growing wider, smile dropping and horror dawning, and then he's finished and staring at her and then he's staring at where her stricken face was just before she flashed out the door.

Because what other reaction _could_ there be, he thinks to himself before smashing a priceless vase with a bellow of rage.

* * *

Caroline decides on a Wednesday.

Her head's spinning and her heart's lurching and she's never wished for her memories more than right now. Because how could she be in love with such a monster? She is, she knows that now, both this self and the one who knew, the one who drafted that text and let it sit there for months. She hasn't forgotten who she _is_ , after all, and she recognizes that her other self was stubborn, unwilling to admit, and that draft was a ticking time bomb.

So much so that it's led her to this moment. What the _hell_ had she been thinking? Her mind races back to the central question, falters at the flash of memories. Is it really enough that he loves her? Because it's plain as day in his voice, his actions, those eyes that expose him so readily. But really, how in the hell is that enough? He has killed so many, for selfish reasons, to further his own ends. So why the fuck is it ok to love him? She hadn't been able to watch Braveheart since Mel Gibson revealed his crazy, anti-semitic ass, and Tom Cruise was anathema after that whole couch-jumping Scientology thing. But now she's willing to just turn a blind eye because this monster cared about her, and only her?

She keeps turning it over in her head, examining it from all angles, thinking of everything Klaus has told her and wondering at everything he hasn't. She thinks of his honesty, and what it means for him to have played the hand he has. Why couldn't the effort be enough? Shouldn't it be enough? She looks down at her own hands and can almost see the blood they've spilled and wonders if Klaus looks at his own and sees a river of red. There is no comparison - or is there?

And it's as the door to the warehouse screeches open and hits the corrugated metal with a ringing clang that she realizes the questions don't matter to her as much as they should, and she doesn't really care. She stares at the doorway, the grey light surrounding his dark silhouette.

"Caroline."

"Klaus."

"It's not safe for you out here, I have too many enemies," he says, tentative words gathering steam. He treats her like a shying colt. She sighs.

"I'm fine. I just needed time to think."

He opens his mouth, closes it. "And is a week enough time, then?"

A crack of thunder sounds, and they both glance back at the doorway, Rain begins falling as if a dam has broken, and the sudden roaring of the drops hitting the metal roof is almost deafening. Caroline walks towards him, dreamlike.

"I think so," she finally answers, words almost inaudible as the storm shudders around them. She has an unbidden memory of sitting in a car wash, the thunder of water jets drowning out the world. Shaking her head and meeting Klaus' guarded gaze, she approaches a step closer. "Yeah."

And what are your thoughts?" he asks, and if there is a tremor in his voice, no one could detect it.

He almost turns away when he sees her step stutter in her approach, but she catches herself and continues walking and he watches and waits.

There is nothing else in the world. Just rain and shadow and Caroline.

"I think I'm confused. And angry," she admits with a tilt of her head. " _And_ I think that I'm absolutely freaking insane." Her eyes dance as she lifts her gaze to meet his own, and he searches for something below the surface.

"I wouldn't say _insane_ ," he says, deciding to play along, his tone light even with the question behind it.

"Oh yeah? What would you say?"

There's no pause as he responds and his words fill her chest. "Dedicated. Fierce. Passionate. Stubborn. Willful. Brilliant. A quee-."

Thunder cracks sharply again as her lips meet his and the rain pounds the roof while his hands touch her face, so gently, the heels of his palms meeting below her chin. He pulls away and his eyes dart back and forth, looking for something unspoken in her own that he's afraid to ask for. But sometimes words are what's needed. "I won't change for you, not everything."

"I know. But I'll still make you try."

The thin sheet metal of the warehouse walls reverberates as Caroline's back slams against it and there's only the rain and shadow and _them_.


	13. to cast a shadow

**Written for Abby/3tinkgemini for KLaroline Winter Wonderland. I wanted to honor her Native American roots. This is M for smut, but it's about 6 sentences so pretty easy to skip over.**

 **Mystic Falls - 994**

"What's this then?"

Father's voice was on the edge of gruff, which meant he wasn't happy. Rebekah glanced at Kol through her lashes, letting his quick wink ease her worry. The shadows cowered behind his legs, scared perhaps by Father's voice, but _Kol_ was never scared.

"They're our shadow friends, Father. Mother says they walk the line between worlds, and that they like Bekah and I best." Kol's tone held a note of pride, and Bekah couldn't help but grin herself. Elijah and Finn and Nik all said shadows were child's play. But Kol and her knew better. They knew the shadows were _magic._

Father speared a glance at the door to the longhouse where mother was gathering hot stones for cooking. He looked like he always did when he thought they were being silly children, and Bekah became afraid he would stop them from playing with their friends.

"Father, they help to teach us magic, like mother does, so that we can protect the family!" Bekah knelt down and cupped her hands in front of her. Runa couldn't resist and disengaged from Kol's leg, the shadow jumping up inside Bekah's hands, all smoke and bubbling black, like she was holding darkness and her hands the cauldron. Bekah pulled her hands close and whispered in the language mother had given up on showing the older boys, but Kol and Bekah had drank in:

" _tuum protege me, a suis tenebris"_

She watched Father's eyes' flicker as Runa doubled, then tripled in size, the darkness forming a circle and her face shrouded by the shadow's veil. She saw Father reach out and shout as his hand struck the now-solid shade, and heard Kol's bark of laughter before he managed to rein it in, though a smile still danced across his face.

"It's ok, father. Runa won't hurt me."

Father was grumbling and Bekah feared she had lost him by assaulting his pride. She tried another tack, petting the inside of the darkness that had formed in a sphere around her, like the glass beads Torunn made on the fire and gave to all the little girls during Midsummer blót. She still kept hers hidden beneath a loose board in the longhouse.

" _gladius al patrem"_

Kol's eyes lit up as the grass became shadowed by darkness in the form of a blade, smoke curling up its form. Bekah nodded to father and his brows knit like they did when he was trying to decide whom to believe in an argument. But Bekah _always_ won, and so she did now, his hand reaching out and curving around the blade's grip, his eyes wondrous as he felt the shadow's solid form in his hands, weighing its heft and then spinning and cutting at a branch of the sturdy oak that shaded the longhouse. Runa cleaved through the branch with no resistance and it fell to the ground. Father gave a whoop of laughter and Bekah's heart lifted at the sound and then Runa was on the ground and she was swept up in father's arms and she was laughing, laughing, laughing until Kol's shout split across the air like a lightning strike.

"Ansel!" Runa's brother – Kol and Bekah had decided their shadows were siblings too - had stopped his cowering behind Kol and was slithering like a shadow snake towards father. Perhaps he thought to join Runa, but the shadow's motivation was forgotten in the wake of father's eyes as he set Bekah down.

"You've named them? What's this one's name then?" father asked, his voice strange.

"Runa," Bekah said, slowly, searching his face. Something felt different and she was confused. Her gaze darted to Kol but he ignored her, staring at father intently.

Father turned towards him. "And what did you call this one? Ansel? That's an uncommon name."

Bekah spoke without thinking. "Mother named him. She said it was a name for a good man and an even better shadow."

"Did she?" Father's eyes turned cold and he turned towards the longhouse. "Carry on, children, I think I shall talk to mother about your pets, and about how good of a man this Ansel really is." He walked off without a backwards glance, but his mood had shifted the air and Runa and Ansel had disappeared back to wherever it was shadow creatures came from. Bekah looked up at Kol's worried face and knew she had said something wrong.

The fighting lasted all night.

The next day father had changed. He still smiled at Bekah, cuffed Elijah and even serious Finn behind their ears in affection, helped Kol learn how to carve fishhooks from bone, but Niklaus? Niklaus became dirt beneath father's boot and her heart ached.

Because Bekah knew these things were all connected, and she knew it was her fault.

* * *

 **New Orleans, 2020**

The shadows came at dusk on a stiflingly-hot August day, the city's human inhabitants holed up next to their A/C units, tourists holding their 24-ounce souvenir Hurricane cups to sweat-mottled faces, drowning their heated sorrows one slurp of sickeningly-sweet alcohol at a time. If the humans saw the darkness rising, the curls of black smoke that darted between buildings, they blamed it on the heat.

Rebekah wouldn't have noticed either if she hadn't been distracted by a fabulous pair of Valentino pumps that were simply _not_ doing that redhead justice. So she took a brief detour into the French Market and whispered a few words and now the redhead didn't look any worse really and - _how convenient_ \- she had been _looking_ for a pair of studded leather pumps. Wiping her lips discretely on one of the millions of hideous souvenir shirts on display, Rebekah heard a strangled, guttural voice cry out. She flashed towards the noise out of boredom, through the open archways into a maintenance area next to the market where trashcans sat full to brimming.

A vampire - one of Marcel's tiresome brood - was on his knees, tilting precariously. She thought his eyes were completely black before she saw the whites reappearing and a shadow plumed out of his slack-jawed mouth. The shadow seemed to pulse, crackling with energy as it flew into the vampire once again, Rebekah tracking the shadow's movement by the darkness that moved just beneath the vampire's skin. He toppled to the ground, lifeless, and the shadow emerged again, hanging in the air, Bekah later swearing that it seemed to consider her for a moment before it disappeared without a trace.

* * *

On the other side of the Quarter, Klaus narrowed his eyes at the canvas in front of him, stepping back to blur the colors together and spot the flaw. His latest attempt to capture the moment had Caroline arrived at his doorstep was lacking something – perhaps it was the light as it shone on her blonde curls, or the glimmer in her eyes when their gazes met. He had stood there with a million questions racing through his mind because despite keeping tabs on her over the years, he had never expected _this_. This girl with her decision blazing in her gaze looked up at him and said, "you kept your promise. Now I'm keeping one to myself." There had been a thousand kisses since, and there would be billions more in their everlasting lifetime, but he would never forget the rising of his heart then, when her breath met his lips. A choice, hers, and she had taken it.

 _That's what's missing_ , he thought, _perhaps more pink in the cheeks, to show her color risen from her own determined thoughts._ There! perfect, and just in time too – he heard the faint crack of a snare drum in the distance, the horns rising to meet its sharp snap.

"Klaus!" her excited voice called up the stairs. "Come oooon! We're gonna miss it!" Caroline was enamored with this city and its floats and king cakes, its etouffe and artist markets, its brass bands and blues and easy acceptance of witches; the Bennett witch having trailed her to the town when she first escaped her small-town life. He thought these second line parades, that appeared as if by magic, might be her favorite: celebrations of life and love and the spirit of this city.

He swirled the brush in turpentine and wiped it off before following her into the streets, watching her dance and make friends with a young stepper who beamed with a smile of pride at her easy compliments. She danced towards Klaus, teasing him by moving close and backing away, and when she finally moved to meet him after a few blocks, his hand settled on the small of her back to keep her close. Her face turned up to his and his hand moved to her hip, spinning her and backing her up hard against a weathered door before he dipped his head to kiss her, swallowing her exclamation of surprise. The parade simply nodded its appreciation and danced on.

* * *

"Nik, I swear it. It was a...thing of darkness and smoke, like the shadows Kol and I used to play with. Mother said they were -"

Klaus' mouth twisted narrowly before he interrupted his sister. "There is _no way_ mother is behind this-"

"I didn't say she was, Nik, and if you'd let me finish my sentence, perhaps you'd learn something."

Klaus inhaled deeply in irritation but kept quiet, dropping into a chair before gesturing at her grandly to continue.

"Oh _thank you_ , my liege," Rebekah bit out in an icy tone and held back a smile at Caroline's laugh; she'd never liked the chit and didn't plan on changing anytime soon. "The shadows that Kol and I used to play with - when does he get back from Rio by the way? I thought Carnival only lasted a week?" Klaus shrugged and Caroline eyed her and lifted a glass in question. Rebekah nodded in thanks. Fine. The girl was still a chit, but at least she had manners.

"Anyways, mother said these shadows weren't from the Other Side, but rather the edge of it. Kol and I used to train on magic with them. They had personalities, almost. Playful, protective, loyal. Ansel even learned how to play tricks on us."

Klaus almost couldn't hold back his surprise and deflected as quickly as he could. "You...named them?"

Caroline handed Rebekah a glass and sat back casually on the arm of Klaus' chair, his hand reaching up to rest on her thigh. Their easy familiarity would take _at least_ a century more to get used to, Rebekah thought, taking a sip of scotch before answering. "Mother did. Runa was my shadow, Ansel was Kol's. But what do names matter, Nik? The important part is I just saw a shadow eating one of Marcel's lackeys three blocks from Café du Monde!"

"Marcel said something the other night about some dead vampires. I told him to find and punish those responsible, but from what you're saying, it may not have been a witch or a werewolf." Her brother adopted a grim expression and leaned forward in his chair. "Tell me everything mother taught you about these...shadows."

* * *

They were in bed, Caroline tracing circles over the tattoo on his chest, when she asked him.

"So, why did the name Ansel surprise you? Is it someone from your past?"

He should have known. Caroline was greedy for details about his life, endlessly curious in that eternal sunshine way of hers that made him want to tell her about everything so he could watch her face. _Of course_ she would notice his reaction, however infinitesimal, and _of course_ she would ask. Time for a distraction.

He turned towards her and dipped his head to run his lips along her shoulder, nipping across her collarbone. She sighed, a sound that started in resignation and ended in pleasure, her head tilting back to arch her body towards him, and he knew he had won himself a little more time. He settled her on her back as he draped himself across her, beginning a slow descent with his mouth. He cupped the flesh of her ass and squeezed before lifting her leg up and hooking it behind his shoulder, placing an almost absentminded kiss on her knee. His other hand spread her folds to dip inside before circling her clit with the softest touch, and he waited for the inevitable frustrated noise before he lowered his mouth to her breasts, sucking and teasing a nipple with a sweep of his tongue as his hand increased pressure.

Normally he'd have whispered a dozen dirty thoughts into her skin by now, but tonight he already had too many words circling in his head and so noise made up for language. Soft groans and her echoing moans, a grunt as he thrust two fingers inside her, his breath catching as her leg tightened on his shoulder and she fell apart. His name. Her own, said brokenly in answer as he sunk into her.

He was rough, needing the release and knowing she liked it that way, her nails sunk into the meat of his shoulders, his eyes wolf-yellow as double-jawed fangs pierced into her neck and she cried out, pulsing around him almost violently, pulling his own orgasm from him.

It was enough to hide the words for a few minutes more. It would never be long enough.

Klaus watched with trepidation as Caroline's chest rose in a deep inhale before she spoke. "Great distraction, Klaus. But now I'm even more curious, because I want to know _why_ you want to hide this so bad."

Klaus sighed. How to explain to his love that he had killed his own father to protect her? He remembered that confused feeling of elation and alarm when Ansel had stared at him over the fire and said "I saw you dancing with the blonde in Mystic Falls." It had been liberating for moment, that shared secret, until he realized that his father's knowledge of the happiness Caroline brought could only be used against him. And so he had made his choice. And if he had looked back once or twice, it was only to use as an artist's muse; you'll forgive him, won't you?

Caroline lay beside him, eyes trained on his own where he knew his thoughts were revealed more and more by the second.

"Klaus, what?" she prompted softly, running a hand down the stubble of his cheek.

He rose from the bed, shoulders lit by the moonlight.

"He was my real father."

"You mean the werewolf side of you? Did...did you know him?"

"No, not until the Other Side was destroyed. He came to me." He tensed as Caroline's hand touched his back, the gesture so acute in its trust that it angered him. He snapped. "I killed him."

"Wh-what? Why? Was he like Mikael? Seriously, Klaus, could you have at least _one_ family member that isn't out for your blood?"

His anger grew at her show of loyalty, even if it was all he had ever wanted. "No, Caroline. My father actually wanted to form a relationship with me." He laughed darkly. "He wanted to be a dad after a thousand years of ruin."

He felt her hand falter on his back but oh, that trust once it was earned was so hard to break. He should know, he'd used that to his advantage countless times, with countless beings long-dead from his treachery. He closed his eyes as she stood and turned him towards her, resting her hands on his hips, and if he wasn't so cowardly as to keep his eyes shut, he'd see the shaft of moonlight slanting across her face now.

"I killed him because he knew about my weakness, Caroline. He knew about _you_ , before you came to me, before Bonnie cast the runes that protect you." He couldn't help himself and opened his eyes, tracing the patterns that he knew by heart, Viking runes of protection found in his mother's grimoire and drawn with magic just beneath Caroline's skin. At least the Bennett witch and himself had agreed on one thing.

Caroline pulled away and he closed his eyes again. Her voice held an edge of tension to it that only grew as she spoke. "So, let me get this straight? You killed your dad, who came back from the Other Side to see you, because you were worried that somehow meant he wanted to kill me…"

He heard drawers open and slam shut, the swish of fabric. "Well, to be fair, I killed him because I couldn't let that knowledge be known to my enemies at the time, which included Mikael and my dearest mother."

"Klaus, _Damon_ knew you were in love with me. But he's still alive? So help me understand what sort of logic you used, because honestly? It's escaping me at the moment." Even in her biting sarcasm there was a hint of hope that lay just beneath. He opened his eyes again as she slid one of his henleys over her head, her hair sticking up in odd directions until she smoothed it with an unconscious motion. His breath became strangled in his throat. A thousand years of the human condition and yet his breath was strangled in his throat at the sight of her. Love was a weakness indeed.

"Damon was and never will be a threat, Caroline. My father and whomever his loyalties were towards were an unknown." His anger rose to the surface and he said the words he knew would make her leave. "I will _not_ have my judgment questioned when comes to your safety." And there it was, the visible affront, the almost-comical-in-its-anger act of pulling on a pair of jeans, the glare and the angry muttering and then, then at the door that final turn.

"Then I'll give you time to question your own judgment, _Klaus_."

His phone was out and six bodyguards dispatched before the door could even slam.

* * *

"What the _fuck_?" Bonnie's indignant cry was lessened somewhat by the sheet hastily pulled to cover her breasts. Klaus could care less and scanned the room before kicking open the bathroom door. No Caroline. Where the hell _was_ she?

"Where is Caroline?" Klaus voiced his thoughts through the pain as Bonnie instinctively stabbed at him with magic. "She ditched my hybrids, and worthless as they clearly are, she can't be out in the city now without protection." Bonnie dropped her spell at the undercurrent of panic in Klaus' voice. If there was anything she didn't doubt from the Original, his love and loyalty for Caroline was without question.

She sighed. "Caroline isn't here, clearly. But she's safe, and before you ask, she didn't tell me anything about where she is," Bonnie said, eyeing Klaus warily, "or even what you did, exactly."

"Well then how do you know she's safe? There are shadow creatures draining the life out of vampires out there – whether she's in the city or not _things are not safe_ and I never would have let her leave if -"

" _Let_ her? Oh this is _hilarious_ , please tell us all of your relationship secrets!" a new voice said from the air next to Bonnie and she sighed resignedly, waving a hand in dismissal of a spell.

"Kol...we had a deal," she whispered uselessly.

"But darling, Nik is so delightfully clueless, you can't blame me for speaking up." Kol turned his bedhead towards Klaus, the self-satisfied grin stretched across his features dropping as his eyes turned strangely serious. "And besides that, I think I can help."

"Ansel?" Klaus asked and Kol's eyes widened.

"How did? – ah, Bekah. Yes, We've seen shadows before. What I don't get is why they're attacking now. They are – _were_ – harmless. Friendly, even. But I remember -" Kol paused, shifting on the mattress as he squinted in thought and Bonnie took the chance to pull on a robe from a hook next to the bed, wrapping it around her thin shoulders. "I remember mother saying they were spirits tied to the earth, to the land itself," Kol finished, eyebrows raised in a prompt, and Klaus picked up the thread with a thankful nod to his brother.

"Which sounds eerily reminiscent of Native American beliefs." He wheeled in his tracks before he even finished his sentence, leaving the room in such a hurry that Bonnie pulled her robe closer to shrug off the breeze, glancing with worry at Kol.

"Do you think Caroline will be safe? Should I have made her talk to Klaus instead of hiding out?"

"She'll be fine, she's a vampire and she has Nordic runes of protection magically etched on her by the most powerful witch of our age," Kol said with a wink, tapping Bonnie's nose.

Bonnie rolled her eyes but nodded, moving on to give Kol a sideways glance. "You know, this is not how I wanted people to find out about us."

"Are you trying to say you're ashamed of," he stood and let the sheet drop, "all this?"

Bonnie sighed an aggrieved sigh. "I hate you."

"I've translated that as 'you are the most charming person I've ever met, and I would like to have sex with you now."

"No, it just means I hate you."

"Are you sure?" Kol leaned down over her, hands on either side of her head.

"Yes. Except you might be right about the sex part."

* * *

Klaus always found that the wolf cleared his head. Part of it, he supposed, was the pain of transformation, part of it the rhythm of the loping strides as his beast carried him away from the city, like now as he turned southwest towards the town of Houma. Another part of it was the inevitable thoughts of Henrik, his brother, dead some thousand years and his sweet smile unfairly faded in Klaus' millenia-old memory. As a wolf, he found that the residual memories of his brother were stronger - the result of the instincts tied to pack - and while Klaus never failed to marvel at the twisted irony, he would also never turn down the chance to remember.

Always and forever.

Some thirty miles from New Orleans, Klaus slowed his run and trotted along a low creek bed. He heard the rack of a shotgun and then a low voice across the swampy gloom: "Hold your fire. I know that wolf."

Klaus approached cautiously, scenting two males before he even saw the older one wave the younger off, and Klaus emerged from the treeline, pawing the ground.

The man kicked a bag at his feet towards Klaus. "You just caught me heading to the gym. My grandkids insist I need weight-bearing exercises at my age." He leveled a stare at Klaus' amber eyes before pulling up a cheap plastic chair in front of a small firepit laid with kindling. Klaus disappeared back into the woods to transform, walking unabashedly through the backyard in naked human form before pulling on a pair of threadbare sweatpants from the man's bag.

"It has been some years, hybrid. Why do you come now?" The man's face could almost be considered round if it wasn't for his heavy, squared jaw.

Klaus dipped his head in acknowledgment. "My deepest respects, Nashoba. I need to know what you know of shadow creatures."

Nashoba's sparse brows lifted in surprise but didn't respond at first and Klaus struggled to remain patient with the old ways.

When Nashoba spoke, his voice was rich and steady, the voice of a storyteller. "Shadows - _shilombish_ -are attracted to life and death, because that is when their kind is drawn to the earth. They are the balance of soul's light. When a person dies, the shilombish leaves their soul and crosses between-world. " Nashoba leaned over, clicking the button on a fireplace safety lighter and setting the kindling alight. The modern world did offer a few conveniences.

"Between-world?" Klaus asked impatiently.

"It's a place that sits on the cusp of the Other Side, from what the traditions say. The shilombish don't live here, they live _there_. Between-world. Between the darkness and the light." His eyes glimmered in the firelight as he shrugged and turned a considering gaze towards Klaus. "Heard tell they've been draining vampires. Seems funny to me, hybrid. Shilombish aren't violent creatures, just shadows of the dead before they find their way back home. Funny business, them killing things that hang in between life and death, nowhere close to their purpose. Makes an old man wonder if someone's behind it all."

Klaus snapped, reaching across and grabbing Nashoba around his thick neck. "What do you know? My respect for your traditions pales when you sit here and make me out for a fool." The man wheezed in the hybrid's grip before Klaus caught the fear in his eyes and relented.

"What i gave was wisdom, not plans," Nashoba rasped when he could speak again, massaging his throat with a wrinkled hand. "Leave now. You will get no more from this old man. I may not be able to kill you, but our magic runs deep and we will offer no quarter." At this he stood and Klaus felt the crackle of magic surging from the earth. It was time to go, he had gotten all that the tribe could offer.

He nodded to Nashomba before casually walking towards the woods, nonchalance oozing from every step. Unable to resist the last word, Klaus stopped at the treeline. "Just remember that our pact runs both ways, old man. Considering my anger a break would mean my own conditions of the pact would no longer be valid, and your tribe no longer protected. Your choice! Have a pleasant evening!"

* * *

Klaus eyed the garish arch of lights that marked the nighttime gate of Louis Armstrong Park with distaste. He'd been trailing Caroline for a good mile now; after days of no contact he'd finally spotted her in the Garden District and tailed her quietly, eyes locked on her form. Now in the Quarter with her phone glued to her ear – presumably Bonnie on the other end - her easy conversation and laughter simultaneously soothed and enraged him.

How _dare_ she be ok? How dare she flaunt how fine she was without him? He almost flashed up to confront her when he heard her voice change and he held his breath instead, listening. She would be so angry if she knew, but he wanted – _needed_ – to hear her say something, anything.

"I don't know Bon – I mean I miss him, of course I do. And it _hurts_ to not be with him." Klaus couldn't stop his small exhale at this, but she continued on, unnoticing. "But I – I don't know. I feel almost like he used me as an excuse for something really horrible and it makes me feel a part of it and I just..." She paused, kicking at a pebble on the ground and chasing after it to kick it again as the night curled around her feet. "I know I made my peace with who he was – _is_ \- but that doesn't mean that I can just turn a blind eye to it when it happens. I don't know."

Klaus was so distracted by her words and the loyalty inherent in them that he didn't notice that the darkness around Caroline was darker than it should be. He _did_ notice that the shadow she threw on the wall encircling the park stirred at the edges and he started forward just as Caroline dropped the phone and screamed, her voice stolen moments later as a shadow slipped inside her mouth.

"No!" Klaus grabbed Caroline, shaking her, trying to find a way to remove the shadow without harming her. He yelled at Bonnie on the other end of the phone that miraculously hadn't broken in the fall. "The shadows, they're taking her. Why aren't the runes protecting her? DO SOMETHING! " Caroline's skin swam with smoke and shadow but the protective runes indeed lay dormant, without the glow that signified their power awakened.

"Klaus, keep her there, we're coming," Bonnie yelled before disconnecting and Klaus held Caroline helplessly, watching as sections of her skin darkened to jet black, so dark as to be an absence of color rather than a shade, his artist's mind thought needlessly.

"Oh!" Caroline cried, a small surprised sound, and Klaus knelt, laying her back against a bent knee, searching her face in a panic. What could you do when your power meant nothing?

She coughed, dark smoke emerging from pale lips, and Klaus fruitlessly tried to catch the shadow in his hands. Caroline rolled off of Klaus' leg and on to all fours, heaving up choking breaths as clouds of darkness escaped her mouth before swirling in a fog around her head.

"Oh! oh oh my god."

"What, what. Love? What is it?" Klaus was still panicked, but his worry had eased a bit now that the dark creatures didn't seem to be draining Caroline, not like they had countless others.

She sat back on her haunches and stared straight ahead, Klaus kneeling down in front of her to study her face. Moments passed with her gaze faraway and Klaus reached a helpless hand towards her before she finally responded, in a tone shrouded with wonder.

"The shadows. They're telling me their story."

* * *

"But why you?" Bonnie asked, pushing up on her toes and sending the porch chair swinging. They had come back to the cottage after meeting up at the park, Caroline pale but safe though the shadows still circled her head like a shark tank. She sat now with Klaus across from Bonnie and Kol, and the hybrid refused to stop touching her. Currently his arm was wrapped around her waist and Bonnie would think it almost cute if it wasn't _Klaus._

Caroline shrugged. "I think they were worried they'd interfere with the shadows already attached to human souls, so they tried working with something that was neither dead nor alive. They don't...think in the same way we do, so it's hard to say why I lived and others died, but, um, I'm glad that's the case?" Klaus grip tightened at her words and she held back a smile, leaning her head against his shoulder.

They were all surprised when Kol spoke up, continuing the thread. "It's because you're so close to your humanity. My brother called it," he said with a mock salute at Klaus and air quotes on his next words, "you're 'full of light'. It kept you alive."

Bonnie mouthed an embarrassed 'sorry!' at Caroline for revealing a confidence, and understanding dawned across Klaus' features. "Nashomba mentioned something about the soul's balance. You had enough humanity to survive the shadows communicating with you. So, were they able tell you who is controlling them now, and what their plans are?"

"Shockingly enough, Klaus, not everything has to be about power and control. You know what they want? A place to live." Caroline lifted her head from Klaus' shoulder and looked at Bonnie as she explained. "When the Other Side was destroyed, the shadows' home started falling apart, pieces of it dropping into the void where the Other Side used to be. While the veil and what was behind it was gone in a flash, the between-world that relied on it has taken longer to, well...die."

"Sooo," Bonnie drawled, "what does that mean?"

"They need a new home, and they need help getting it." Caroline's eyes were pleading and Bonnie almost laughed.

"This isn't the same as the time you made me adopt that kitten even though I was allergic to it, Care. What do you expect us to do?"

Klaus spoke up. "I can't say having a stable of vampire-draining shadow friends wouldn't be convenient. What can we do to help, sweetheart?"

Caroline glared at him, trying to pull away from his iron grip. "This isn't about _using_ them, and they can't live here anyways. We need to recreate their home, the between-world. Bon – do you remember the spell that made you the anchor?"

Kol clapped his hands, delighted. "Oooh what poor soul will be the shadow's anchor? Can I pick? How about that Diego? He's always irritated the piss out of me. No, wait, I'd rather use his head for batting practice. Oh! Oh! I know! Damon Salvatore!"

Caroline stifled her laughter. "Kol, we can anchor it to one of the shadows itself. No torture needed, although I would totally vote for Damon."

Kol's face fell and Bonnie almost felt sorry for him.

* * *

Bonnie emerged from the magic shop, the top of a paper sack peeking over the edge of her purse and her expression troubled. She gave a distracted half-smile to Caroline as she passed her, walking back to where the car was crookedly parked on the street.

"Bon?"

Bonnie glanced up. "Sorry. I just..." She stopped, tried again. "I've been thinking about the shadows. _I'm_ the one that destroyed their home, however indirectly. And it's just - " she paused as she opened the car door, "How many other things have I ruined and paid no attention to? I've never even given a thought to the consequences of my magic."

"Bon, we've never really had _time_ , we're always one step away from some crazy supernatural threat destroying us all. It's not like you're choosing to ignore things. And think of how many lives you've saved _._ "

Bonnie sighed and started the car but made no move to pull away from the curb. "Yeah, I know you're right, kinda."

Caroline raised a brow. "Excuse me? I'm 100% right. Except I will say that if you show up with another super creepy college professor I will **totally** say something earlier." The girls both shuddered. "Look, I'm not going to say you haven't done bad things, because that would be a lie, just like it would be for me. I guess it's just...I look at you, and I see someone I love, someone that's made sacrifices for every single person around her without asking for anything in return. That's who I see," Caroline finished, reaching across the console to envelop Bonnie in a long hug, her eyes squeezed tight as if to mimic.

Bonnie's eyes held a wet sheen as she pulled into traffic and headed back towards the Quarter.

A few minutes later they rolled into Bonnie's driveway, tires crunching on gravel, the two Originals meeting them at the gate to the small backyard patio where they would perform the ritual. How Klaus could manage the kicked-puppy look after a life of countless atrocities was beyond Caroline, but his expression was dangerously close to melting the ice around her heart. She still wasn't sure what to think about his real father, but she'd at least gotten over the guilt, because in the end she knew that Ansel would be dead by Klaus' hand whether it was on her behalf or for another twisted reason. Klaus wasn't exactly on a redemption arc.

No, that murderous hybrid darting worried glances at her wasn't ever going to be 'fixed', but she still loved him anyways. That didn't mean she wouldn't show him that actions had consequences, so she pointedly ignored him as she lit a stick of sage, letting the pungent aroma serve as a distraction.

Salt glimmered in the light from the candles as Bonnie completed the circle around Caroline. Klaus drew closer but didn't break the perimeter, his eyes hard now as his concern shifted to something more familiar. "If you harm one hair on her head, witch, consider your life forfeit."

Bonnie ignored him, starting to chant as she took the sage from Caroline, placing it in a brazier that sat at the north end of the circle. At the south end, smoke rose with the hiss of water as Kol extinguished the torch on Bonnie's signal, sending the circle into half-shadow. The remaining light danced across Caroline's face and the shadows deepened behind her, circling, circling, and Bonnie's voice rose to its peak, ancient words of power unleashed.

* * *

"I'm still super pissed at you," Caroline said over her shoulder as she walked inside the cottage - _their home_. The spell had gone off without a hitch as far as they could tell, although Bonnie was quite drained even with all three vampires serving to power the magic.

"I know." His voice was uncharacteristically quiet and she turned in surprise. He'd seemed fine during the spell so...

"What is it, Klaus?"

"Your humanity, your light, it's what saved you."

"Yeah, and?" Her brows knit in confusion, trying to puzzle out what Klaus was getting at.

He was quiet for another moment, jaw tensing when he ground his teeth together, as if trying to hold back his next words. "What if this was three centuries from now, when life with me had invariably darkened you? When you, encouraged by me, had embraced your monster?"

His face was so conflicted, and he seemed so incredibly unsure of himself that Caroline stared at him a moment, giving him a chance to take the words back. When he stayed silent, she grew visibly angry. "God DAMN it Klaus, why don't you get that this," she circled a frustrated hand between them, "us - is about choice? You've always chosen me – it's a big part of why I showed up on your doorstep – but even more importantly, you've _always_ understood that it was my choice. So if I choose to drink from the vein in a year or a century then it's my _choice._ It's not your influence, it's not you 'soiling my light' or whatever bullshit reasoning you want to use to make it about you. Screw that, Klaus." She had backed him up against the now-closed door and they stood inches apart, her face upturned. "It will always be my choice, and you have never taken that from me and you _BETTER_ not be trying to now so that you can get your Tortured Artist punch card filled you _dick!"_ He laughed at this, a laugh that bubbled up from his chest and out into the air and her eyes narrowed. "And if you're laughing at me now I will kill you, white oak stake or not."

He caught his breath and smiled, letting it stretch across his face in a moment of true amusement. "No, Caroline, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just wondering what I get when my punch card is full."

She swatted at him and he cupped the back of her head, drew her close, and kissed her.

A few minutes later she pulled back a little and dipped her head down, nipping at his neck as she offered her delayed response. "I don't know. A broody title for your next painting. An existential crisis. Buy one get one rage-fueled meltdown free." She smiled into his neck and slid her hands up underneath his shirt. "Guess you'll never know."

"Guess not. Certainly not now, at least," he responded and she shook her head even as she reached up to kiss him again. With their eyes closed, neither of them noticed the shadows that playfully swooped and dipped above their heads before disappearing into the blackest night.


	14. minidrabbles

_**Mini Drabble fest! Some assorted drabbles made in response to tumblr hugs, with various themes.**_

 **Super short one to start:**

Klaus couldn't hold back a grin at Caroline's excitement, her hand tugging on his shirt as she danced ahead.

"Come on! It's getting dark fast, and we're NOT going to miss seeing fireworks."

"Did you know, the best fireworks shows are actually in Germany? Americans have no artistry - the Germans set theirs to music. I saw a show with Carmina Burana, and the sky swirled with color and light as the choir -"

Caroline spun in the middle of the sidewalk and poked a finger at Klaus' chest, cutting him short. "Look. You can ruin any other holiday. Except my birthday. And Christmas. And - ok no ruining any holidays with your 'been alive a gazillion years and seen it all and better' attitude, mister," Caroline said, turning with a sniff that reminded him of his sister and calling over her shoulder, "So get with the program, old man."

Pulling his lips in to repress a laugh, he caught up to her, and she reached back to catch his hand in hers, the simple ease of the gesture a twist in his heart even still, years after Caroline had decided forever was now.

* * *

The club was packed, energy high as the bass pulsed and the sweat dripped and bodies undulated. Sounds and smells dominated her senses, sight unnecessary but for a brief flirt in the flash of the strobing lights. A redhead, tall and slinky, with blood that smelled rich and so, so sweet Caroline was almost drunk on the scent. She'd been tracking the girl for the past twenty minutes, sidling close then moving away, looking back through fluttered lashes.

Thirty years in to her vampiric fate, Caroline had found that she loved the seduction of it. Long gone were the days of blood bags and bunnies, she sipped her life from the near-death of others, smoothing their hair back with a gentle hand as she took her fill. Perhaps it was a slippery slope that would end down the line in disregard for human life but those were thoughts for another time when she wasn't so unbearably _hungry._

She'd lost track of the redhead in her musings so let her senses spread once again, hearing the cacophony of a hundred conversations, the sound of skin on skin from a couple screwing against the wall near the bathroom, the rhythmic snap of feet to the music, someone singing along to the dance track with abandon, the scent of vodka and sugar syrup and the sharp alcohol tang of _oh my god was that guy honestly wearing Axe?_ She wrinkled her nose, still scanning the crowd from her perch on the second floor, finally catching a glimpse of red and a hand leading her prey away. _Excuse me?_

She shoved her way down the stairs, ignoring the offended comments and various calls of 'bitch!', shouldering her way through the crowd in a beeline to the backdoor limned in light from the streetlamp outside, dimming as it shut once more. A super hot guy that reminded her of Jesse from Whitmore tried to step in front of her with a charming smile and she stopped with annoyed huff to compel him out of her way. Sorry, hot dude. The supper bell was ringing and if she wasn't mistaken, someone was stealing her meal.

Palming the door open she spotted her redhead on the right, shoved up against the wall by a vamp with curly hair on the edges of too-long.

"Excuse me, that was _my_ meal, so you can just take your loser fangs somewhere else, mis-." Her breath left her as the vampire turned towards her voice, his face illuminated by the streetlight.

"My apologies, Caroline. I wasn't aware you called vampire 'dibs'," Klaus said with a grin, blood lacquering his mouth. He nodded towards the redhead. "You have unsurprisingly excellent taste, love. You're welcome to share."

Caroline deflated even as her fangs slid out. "You know it's not the same," she said motioning with vague gestures, "it's missing the…ugh…you know."

"The thrill of the moment as seduction turns to sustenance? Well, her blood courses through my veins now. You're welcome to seduce _me_." He licked his lips, flicking his gaze from her head to her toes.

"What, like that's hard?"

He laughed. "Never for you, sweetheart." He turned back towards the girl, licking the blood still on her neck and dropping her in an unceremonious heap before turning to Caroline with a smile and one hand out. She stared at him, hunger in her veins, arousal high with the scent of blood, and she thought of the twenty-nine years since she'd had her back scraped by bark as they'd confessed more than words could say to the other.

And she reached out her own hand.

* * *

There's an art to knowing another's mind, to predicting the move they'll make before they're even aware of it themselves, and it's an art Klaus has perfected over the years. First to stay one step ahead of his father's unrelenting chase, then over the centuries to lord his superiority over fools that dared to contest his power. There's a satisfaction to a well-executed plan that relies on knowing just how to make a man's kingdom crumble.

But when a grin spreads across Klaus' face as he hangs up the line on a hybrid stationed in Mystic Falls - you understand of course, his promise does not preclude him from knowing her every move - it is not satisfaction he feels. It's…something else. Because _of course_ she would see a need and seek to fill it, opening a school. He imagines she's already barking orders and verbally eviscerating the movers that dared to place the desks two inches to the left of the position she's _clearly marked_ on the plan she's distributed with crisp efficiency and that Mystic Falls smile.

No, it's not satisfaction that he feels for knowing how _very_ Caroline her actions are. He palms his chest where underneath his unceasing heart lies. There's a tightening, a warmth that spreads through corrupted veins, a pleasure close to pain. _Oh._

He pulls out the stationery more as a distraction than anything else, though he indeed wants to make his mark on her. His promise burns low in his gut, only part of him cursing its existence because, once again, _of course_ Caroline isn't ready, and _of course_ she is stubborn. He knows the long game is the right one to play with her, but that doesn't mean he can't send a little reminder.

The pen scratches along the page, and it's easy for the honesty to come out, it's easy to say how proud he is, it's easy to write to her. It only becomes hard when he goes to sign his name. What - what if she throws it in his face? Their friendship is tentative, too little time spent on it to fully realize, and this certainly isn't an easy question of lust. Just…what is it he should say to her? Frustrated, the ache in his heart sinking to his belly, he scrawls his name awkwardly across the page, his signature stilted in the way of a bad actor's delivery. False. Like it's not even his, the tail of the L missing. But his thoughts are hundreds of miles away, and his eyes a thousand-yard stare as he hurriedly writes out a check and seals it up and flicks his eyes at the maid that has entered with wrist bared to his fangs so that he can drown his thoughts in her blood.

* * *

And finally...my take on the deleted klaroline kiss, a meme thetourguidebarbie wonderfully started:

What pissed Tyler off more than anything else, if he was being honest with himself, was that he knew him and Caroline weren't forever. They were a moment in time, a rescue, hot teenage hybrid vampire hormones with a dash of grateful need. And it made him mad, because if there was anything he'd learned dating Caroline, it was that beneath the bitchy cheerleader veneer there was someone who very much deserved to be loved. And while he felt he _did_ in his own way, he also knew it wasn't enough. He felt the call to pack in his veins, the ease in which he settled into fake dating with Hayley, the pull of revenge. Things that he knew in time would win out over picnics at the falls, classes at Whitmore, even the way the little frustrated divot between her brows would clear when he looked at her and smiled.

But it hurt. It hurt to know that they were living on borrowed time, when he wasn't yet ready to let go.

So maybe that's why Klaus' earnest flirtation had Tyler crushing the metal edge of the table in a shrieking grip. Hayley quirked a brow at him before muttering "Eyes on the prize, Lockwood." He acknowledged her with a reluctant nod, his thoughts straying back to Caroline, to the monster who was now making her laugh with a sincerity even Caroline couldn't fake.

Tyler wasn't blind. He had seen, noted, already tried to root out whatever Caroline felt for Klaus. What Klaus felt for Caroline was the mystery. Because it was easy to dismiss him in a rage, but Tyler wasn't stupid either. He saw the unexpected in Klaus' face, in his eyes that tracked her movements, in his reckless laughter that sounded so normal, truly, just a young man…

Falling in love.

Tyler shook the thought from his head. No way. Caroline would never return it, that's for sure. Klaus had killed Jenna, had aimed to kill Elena, had torn free will from so many in his relentless search for domination, not to mention being the instrument of Caroline's almost death. So why was he worried? Why was that glimmer of something still in her eyes when she spoke to Klaus? Why was she listening, enraptured, while he told some bullshit story about a hummingbird - Come _on_ Caroline - you're better than this you're better than _us_.

 _You're better than him._

He felt Hayley's hand glide into his own, a sidelong whisper, "Let's at least try to keep up appearances." They glanced at each other, a grave moment spared, and when he looked back to his surveillance, Caroline's laughter had stopped. She was staring up with incredulity at Klaus and…why were they so close? There were more questions than answers in her face, a reaction, confusion. He'd have to ask her what he'd said to piss her off, because there was that furrow between the brow and there she was taking a deep breath and Tyler almost smiled, because he'd bet money Klaus was about to get an earful. But she looked up towards the party just then, catching Tyler's gaze with a start, an emotion he'd swear was guilt flitting across her face. She turned away, and Tyler had to strain his hybrid senses to hear her words tumble out in an angry murmur,

"Date's over, Klaus."


	15. Chapter 15

Summary: Caroline's been living the dream of Whitmore life, but to be honest, she's bored out of her mind. So when Mystic Falls once again rears its supernatural head, Caroline's almost relieved - until she realizes she'll need the help of one Original Hybrid. Set after 5x11 in an AU ignoring any and all season 6 things, and also Bonnie never died, because we all know that was lame. Notes:

For soapmaniac22. Klaroline Winter Wonderland gift on AO3

P.S. to the guest reviewer who asked for AH, I do not write it or even read much of it, I'm so sorry! I like them as vampires too much.

* * *

When she thought about it, Caroline realized the relative quiet of the last year or so at Whitmore - no witches planning their deaths, no ancient, petulant vampire with a grudge - had almost been... _boring_. This was Mystic Falls, after all – thwarting the latest supernatural threat was basically a lifestyle. So yeah, while she'd thought regular college life was what she'd wanted, the fact that her breath caught and her adrenaline spiked at the very real prospect of facing some new disaster? Well, maybe becoming a vamp had turned her into a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

Turning from her desk, Caroline spotted a box marked "Elena"; the last of her friend's things left in the dorm. Caroline wasn't ruling out friendship in the future, but it had been clear that the two had grown apart, and she honestly didn't care to try to find common ground and repair the damage when Elena's clear priority was sucking face with Damon Salvatore. She sent a text, knowing that the two were probably in Bali by now, and honestly thankful neither her nor the Salvatore brothers were around to make this recent threat all about them.

Honestly? It was refreshing.

Caroline spun back to her desk, flipping the pages in her binder and content to focus on the problem at hand as she scanned through news clippings laden with notes jotted in the margins. Vampires had been dying in tightening circles that seemed to be narrowing in specifically on Mystic Falls: a small town in Pennsylvania had seen three bodies staked in some sort of ritual, a rural community outside Nashville had reported the mysterious 'animal' that had stalked their town suddenly no longer threatened, a paper in North Carolina's big headline involved several wild animal attacks. All things that seemed disconnected until you plotted them all out, put them together. Not to mention the red flag - a report of a raving mad killer loose in the streets of Baltimore that some said even bullets couldn't take down.

Hunters. One dead and a vampire paying the mad price for it. And if the dates and locations of the reports were any indication, and Caroline knew they were, the hunters were _close._

Her phone skittered across the nightstand with a notification.

 _You rdy?_

Caroline smiled, thumbing her response.

 _Always bon_

Life felt like it was falling into place. Which was a weird thing to think when you were about to go researching vampire hunter attacks with your witch friend whom you'd gotten incredibly close with now that love triangle drama was out of the way, but there it was. Caroline felt _alive_. She felt a part of everything around her, not invisible, not less than, not an afterthought.

Swinging a jacket over her shoulders to cut the chill of the fall air, she set out to meet Bonnie.

* * *

 _Darkness. The sound of breathing made ragged from fear and...something else. Anguish, the emotion washing over him in a brutal wave. He felt himself cry out._

 _Henrik! Brother!_

 _The cave echoed his scream back at him, the sound desolate and broken. He felt his muscles tense and the sound of wood hitting water. He was rowing in the darkness, the boat gliding through waters once still._

 _Henrik!_

 _He cried again. Silence responded. The air grew thick and heavy, weighting his limbs as they pulled the boat through the darkness, the heaviness suddenly lifting quicker than it'd come. It was like he'd crossed an invisible line, and the darkness retreated, a dim green light revealing an impossible forest._

Klaus' eyes shot open, certain now this was no dream. A solid week of the same image, more and more details emerging that felt too real to be anything but memories. Ones that had been lost to him for an eternity.

Lenore...Esther. He put the pieces together. His mother's true death at the hands of vampire transition must have cleared the spell cast on his memories. _Spelled for a thousand years._

He sat up in bed, sheets bunched around his waist as he struggled to recall past the rage coursing through him. The memories were coming back in bits and pieces, and they felt as fresh as his sibling's latest betrayal.

The falls. A cave. Something….he was trying to contact his lost brother in the dream, so he'd still been human? But..no. The grief in his voice had to mean Henrik was dead. Oh god was this when he was just turned?

More details fell into place. A cave – behind the falls – the veil somehow weak there. The days after Henrik's death, before and after their transition. Klaus had come here, to escape Mikael's rage and his own guilt, had found this passage and sensed the magic in it.

It was just like his foolish young soul to believe in hope, he thought derisively, pulling on a henley and jeans, raking fingers through short curls. He picked up his phone, dropping it as another flash of memory hit.

 _Hand slanted to block the light, so blinding to his new senses. He'd entered the cave at dark, time must be altered in the place of magic. But where was he now? The landscape was unfamiliar, swampy where his home was forested. He felt the panic rise._

Klaus' eyes widened in his French Quarter studio. How _interesting._

More memories, flooding faster, drowning his senses. How he'd emerged from the veil in a different place each time. On one occasion, Elijah had found him ten miles away. Another he'd emerged inside his people's longhouse - he could taste both villagers and crippling shame on his tongue even now. His mother, staring at him with a mix of fear and confusion, looking in his eyes and murmuring Old Norse, the air crackling with her magic. The memories pulled from him, but one, oh one he'd clung on to the hardest until his mother had stolen that one too. Its return was visceral, he felt his heart sink and his stomach twist with emotions long-buried:

 _A woman, dark face creased with time, smiled gently at him. "Oh child, your brother is not here. This is a land where magic dies."_

* * *

Caroline drew great heaving breaths, panic setting in as she closed her door and locked it with shaking hands.

"Ok ok ok ok ok what can I do, how do I fix this?" she mumbled to herself, frantically pacing in the hallway of her childhood home. They'd been ambushed outside Whitmore's library, the heavily armed attackers spraying Caroline with vervain before she'd been able to do much more than snarl. Bonnie had gotten a spell off but the magic had sputtered and fizzled out as her assailants clamped some kind of magic dampener on her arm. It had been so fast and so _organized._

The hunters had found them.

Caroline was far from an idiot. She knew attackers that well-trained could have easily killed them with no need to take Bonnie hostage. So their game had to be something else entirely. Elena? The Salvatores? _No way,_ she thought. She stopped pacing and opened the fridge, bending over to grab the B positive her mom kept fresh for her visits. Free laundry and meals, that's what mothers were for.

The taste of metal hitting her tongue brought with it a flash of insight. The hunters? The attack? They'd let her get away for a reason, and if it wasn't about Elena? This was about her, but more than that, she'd bet money it was about the monster that seemed to only care about her. The certainty of it chilled her - why else would the hunters want Bonnie as a bargaining chip other than a chance to kill _thousands_ of vampires? And even though Klaus had kept his promise and she hadn't seen him since Katherine's 'funeral', if the emotionally-stunted Damon could figure out his attraction and use it, she wasn't surprised the hunters could use it too. Hell, she wouldn't put it past Damon to be the one to tell them. Ehh, that probably wasn't fair, but she didn't really give a shit about being fair to Damon Salvatore.

But now the reality hit, because the _last_ thing she wanted to do was contact Klaus. They'd left things in a good place - and that was putting that day in the woods lightly - but really, Caroline wasn't ready.

Klaus was a forever she hadn't agreed to yet.

Well then...she'd have to just convince _him_ to break their promise, since she wasn't about to make a new one by showing up at his door. Her phone's cursor blinked just below his name, still saved in her phone.

 _So uh you know any way to kill a hunter without triggering the curse?_

She stared at her phone for thirty seconds. "Come _on_ Klaus, use that vamp speed to check your texts."

 _Caroline?_

 _What you dont have me programmed in your phone im hurt_

 _Just surprised. A hunter's curse can't be avoided, Caroline. What is going on?_

 _u sure theres not a secret handshake or something before you kill them?_

Her phone vibrated and with a sigh she picked it up.

His voice was serious with a hint of suspicion, like he was trying to figure out the puzzle. "If you kill a hunter, you're as good as dead, love. What's going on? I thought things would calm down without the doppleganger in your midst."

Caroline wasn't the least bit surprised that he kept tabs on her. "Yeah, well, your creepy sources aside, Bonnie's just been kidnapped by who knows how many hunters. So, I need to stop them." She paused, took a sip from her blood bag as she thought of her next words. "I- I'm not looking for any major help Klaus, I just wanted some advice. I have some tricks up my sleeve."

Klaus jaw hardened as he listened. "I'm sure you do, sweetheart. But as brilliant as you are..." He paused long enough that Caroline almost interrupted his next words, words that didn't continue the thought but started a new one, words that came out in a rasp, a breath ghosting across the miles.

"Will you forgive me for breaking my promise?"

Her breath caught in her throat without her permission, and she tried to lighten the mood, more to escape her feelings than anything else. "You know, this is totally what a friend would do, Klaus. Have you been practicing without me?"

She could almost hear his smile over the phone line.

* * *

"Look, I can totally see how being able to enter the Other Side without dying would be useful, but how is it gonna help us save Bonnie?"

Klaus glanced up at her through his lashes almost coquettishly, a devilish grin spreading across his face. "Because, sweetheart, crossing the veil isn't just about reaching the Other Side. It's about travelling through it."

The two vampires sat in Caroline's living room - which she wasn't even gonna talk about how _bizarrely normal_ that felt - the ice in Klaus' glass clinking as he drank the whisky reserve Liz had kept for Damon's visits.

Caroline threw up her hands, irritated despite the dark thrill his stare over the glass was sending up her spine. "Could you maybe be less pleased with yourself, and more helpful with the explanation?"

Klaus lips twitched at her annoyance, but he answered. "When I traversed the veil before mother wiped my memory, I did it several times. At first when I emerged back into the real world, I found myself near where Founder's Hall exists today... _not_ the falls." Klaus stood, spotting a book on her shelves and pulling it down, opening it up to a map of Mystic Falls and the surrounding area. "Here, the first time I traveled," he commented, pointing, "and here, here, and here, the next few." There was a note of cruel humor in his voice as he continued. "One time I ended up fifty miles away in the middle of a tribe of Powhatans. They were surprised to find me in their midst." His grin was vicious, though Caroline thought she saw something faltering in it, some piece of him he was holding back.

"So what you're saying is the veil can, like, teleport you? But how can you control where you go?"

"Because, Caroline. I know a lot more than I did back then. The Other Side is essentially a one-way mirror onto this world. We'll pass through the veil, see where the hunters are holding the Bennett witch from the other side, figuratively and literally," Klaus smirked as he continued, "and emerge just where we need to be before enacting your admittedly brilliant plan."

Caroline smiled her own self-satisfied smile. It _was_ a good plan, and thank god her and Bonnie had worked on enchantments when Whitmore was on winter break. If only she'd remembered before she'd texted Klaus...well, she'd be stuck with no way of finding Bonnie if she hadn't. And honestly, she realized, it was good to have him here. Good to have someone she trusted here, that she could rely on.

"You know, it pays to be friends with the Original hybrid," she said, a grin in her voice, and Klaus smile was so sunny in return it almost floored her. Caroline wondered as she often did if she was Klaus' first real friend in his vampire life, Ripper notwithstanding. His smile certainly made it seem that way, and the red, blaring warning signs that flared in her head when it came to Klaus Mikaelson grew a little bit dimmer.

* * *

Caroline was trying not to look at Klaus' butt and was failing miserably. To her credit, they were hiking the path that led down to the falls and had to clamber over rocks which put it _right there_ at eye level. She looked away for the fifteenth time, and for the fifteenth time he caught her before she did. His eyes glittered and she voiced an irritated huff, pushing past him to walk in front. He made no attempt to hide his own stare and she stopped in the middle of the trail, the falls a distant rush of sound.

"Seriously?"

His answering smile was wicked. "I was fine walking ahead of you while you ogled me, love. It was your choice to forge ahead."

She shook her head, eyes raised to the sky, and walked on, trying not to blush. Something had changed since that day in the woods, her confession. There was a familiarity, a conscious _knowing_ of what those hands felt like on her skin, how his own skin tasted. It wasn't something you could shove in the back of your mind and forget.

The sooner they got this rescue over the freaking better.

The roar of the falls grew overwhelming as they drew close, and Caroline couldn't help the pang of nostalgia. So many parties, so many illicit beers while Elena, Bonnie and her had giggled about boys. She loved being a vampire, but there was a part of her past that would always be trapped in the amber of fond memory, and there'd always a part of her that missed it like crazy.

She turned towards Klaus, a question in her eyes, and he pointed at where the water thundered into the pool at its base. "It's over there, just behind the falls. There's a path that cuts through."

Caroline couldn't see the entrance, but began picking her way down towards the base, straining to see behind the water's torrent.

"The spell Esther placed on the falls has lasted for a thousand years, and will last for several lifetimes more. It's only my memories that allow me to see the path, juxtaposed over what you see, like a shadow," Klaus said as if expecting the question, his lips at her ear to be heard over the din of the falls, his hand cuffed around her upper arm. She pulled back to let him lead the way, one hand on his shoulder as they stepped forward, the air a cool mist from the spray of the falls.

"Close your eyes, love. It will be easier," Klaus said, and she swallowed, the idle thought that this must be what entering Platform 9 3/4s was like flashing across her brain. _Bonnie loves Harry Potter,_ came the unbidden thought, and she pushed back the pang of anxiety, took one look at the spray and the rock behind it, closed her eyes, and stepped.

The cave was dimly lit from the sun that managed to slice through the falls, and the stones at the entrance slick from water and time. Caroline brushed at the mist that dewed on her shirt, suppressing a shiver as she looked around. The cave was open towards the front, narrowing as the cave went further in to what looked like a tunnel.

"I can't believe all this has been here this whole time," she said almost wonderingly, her hand still on Klaus' shoulder. He smiled back at her, apparently able to hear her over the din, and motioned her forwards. Pale light glittered in the quartz that lay embedded in the slick rockface, the whole cave dappled in shifting light. It was beautiful, and Caroline couldn't help but gape as they moved close to the tunnel, the floor sloping downwards.

Klaus knelt down next to the tunnel's mouth, Caroline's hand dropping from his shoulder as he unwrapped something on the ground that crumbled in his hands. Leather, she noted, kneeling down next to him as he uncovered a piece of wood. He reached into a pocket, pulling out a match that he lit on the sole of his boot and held to the wood. It took a few moments to catch, though the wood was surprisingly dry from the protective leather.

She was about to pull out her phone to use the flashlight app because _hello_ when she caught the look on his now-flamelit face and words staggered to a halt in her throat. Such a mix of emotions flashing across that bladed cheekboned face - grief warring with anger and a sort of reverence that left her confused. The torchlight flickered off his features, shadow and light, and when he looked up at her it was too late to wipe the softness from her gaze.

His answering smile cleared his brow and he began walking, the cave wide enough for them to fit side-by-side. "I put these torches here over a thousand years ago. It's strange to have the memories back, as if they're brand new."

"I can relate," Caroline said, her tone strangely bitter, and Klaus glanced sharply at her. She could guess at his expression. "It was a bit of a brutal wake up call when I became a vampire," she said, still not meeting his eyes which flickered back and forth from her to the path ahead. "Not a fan of compulsion - or spells," she waved at him idly in acknowledgment, "to mess with someone's head like that, their thoughts and feelings…" Caroline stopped, surprised at how much she's said. Damon was always in the back of her head, anger and fear and doubt and uncertainty all raging inside, but she'd learned to keep it to herself.

The space between them grew heavy and Caroline could almost hear the gears turning in Klaus' head as they walked on in silence. The tunnel had widened, and the echo of water dripping served as a thankful distraction. A cavern opened up before them, the torch crackling and throwing light on faintly-rippling water. Klaus eyed Caroline for a few moments, jaw working as he clearly searched for either a response or a question she most likely wasn't ready to answer. He surprised her by dropping it, though his eyes blared fierce warning that this was not the end of it. Turning towards the open cavern, he made a small noise in his throat and rushed ahead, kneeling down at the shore of what seemed to be an underground lake where a wooden object lay upon the stones.

A boat.

"Did you-"

"Yes, this was mine," Klaus said reverently. Caroline knelt down next to him, running a hand along the rough-hewn wood. It was strange to think of Klaus a thousand years ago, before countless years of carnage and distrust. Something in her broke a little at the thought.

"So where is the Other Side?"

"The veil lies somewhere towards the middle of the lake, I think. It's...been quite some time," Klaus said dryly as they pushed the boat into the water. He waved with a gallant hand towards the boat and she stepped in gingerly, more used to paddle boats on Lake Mystic than, well, ancient Viking wooden boats. Klaus hopped in after her with his characteristic grace, passing the torch to her as he grabbed the oars. His necklaces escaped his shirt with the first pull through the water, the torchlight shining off the metal. Even in the dim light, she couldn't help but watch the lean muscles of his arms stretch and contract as their boat glided through the water. Her throat grew dry remembering those arms put to a different task. She cleared her throat and looked away - the constant awareness of his body and its proximity to her own was seriously annoying.

"Why here though?" Caroline asked to cover up her irritation.. "I thought the veil couldn't be breached in the physical world."

Klaus' eyes glittered as he replied, the boat knifing through the water. "The Mayans believed that caves were the gateway to the underworld. They would leave the bodies of their fallen, with gifts to ease their passage. Perhaps the Mayans were right," he shrugged, a pause in the rowing, and the boat drifted along. The torch crackled and smoked in Caroline's hand, throwing flickering light to illuminate glittering stalactites that descended almost to the lake's surface.

"Perhaps there are other paths through to the Other Side in caves like this one, doors we haven't discovered. Or perhaps this is the only one, rooted here because of the creation of myself, my siblings, so close by." He glanced up, studying her face. His eyes closed for the briefest of moments, lashes shadowing his cheeks in the guttering light.

"When I found this place, I felt the magic, felt the presence of death. I thought to use it to find my brother, Henrik." His voice held the briefest of tremors in it at the name. "I did not know the veil obscures only supernatural, that humans-" Klaus cut off, jaw clenched. Caroline reached over instinctively, grabbing his hand that lay still on an oar. He looked up in surprise and she marveled again at how the simplest of gestures seemed to hold the most meaning to him.

He cleared his throat, changing the subject and adopting a lecturing tone, a return to form that made Caroline strangely relieved. "The Mayans' shamans were like priests, easing the journey from life to death through ritual. In caves like this one they would sing, not songs but mantras, notes that would call to the underworld and open the path."

Caroline could imagine it, just Klaus' speaking voice alone felt like it was circling the walls and coming back in on itself, that accent she heard in her dreams reverberating and fading away. There was something magical about the light dancing across his cheekbones, his voice hanging in the air, and she felt something in her relax. She thought of how it would be like so many years ago, the quiet broken by song.

She surprised even herself when she began to sing, trying to find something that matched the moment, settling on a note that slid across the water and climbed up to the ceiling, a note that reflected in Klaus' eyes with the same wonder she felt.

She let the note hang as long as she could, vibrato shaking the tail of it and the echoes forming a chorus. She thought that maybe there was nothing else in this world that could match what they both felt right here and now and oh, isn't that what this unlife was made of?

It was magic. And the boat, still drifting, now in silence, crossed the veil.

A heartbeat as one, their bodies in sync. Silence. Another thud, loud in its contrast. Then calm. Three. Calm. Four.

Chaos.

Wailing took over the silence, a screech of anger, the growing roar of voices. Still in the boat, Klaus grabbed the oars and pulled hard, the grey-green water of the newly-lit cavern seemingly reluctant to part. Caroline passed through something not-quite-tangible and the shock of cold put out the torch. She let it drop to the floor of the boat as she looked around, alarmed.

"I seem to have a fan club in the afterlife," Klaus said with a grin.

"Are you _serious_ Klaus? God, why didn't i think about this. How can we make this boat go faster?" A crowd gathered around them now, seemingly walking on top of the water as they approached. Klaus seemed unfazed, but Caroline was starting to panic. "How are we going to get past them?" She said, and at Klaus' continued grin, "I'm beginning to think I should just let them mob you."

The first of the ghosts closed in, forms lost so long on this side of the veil that they lacked substance, like clouds dissipating. But that didn't mean there weren't more tangible enemies close behind. The boat surged upwards suddenly, the water sluicing off as the ground rose. Caroline grabbed the edge of the boat, looking down at the ghosts they'd left behind. Klaus, out of the corner of her eye, stood up, eyes laser-focused on something in front of him. Caroline whipped her head around to follow his gaze.

"I can't believe you'd come back here, after all you've done." The speaker was a black woman, face creased and folded with age, body surprisingly solid in comparison to the ghosts that surrounded her. Her hair lay atop her head in coiled salt-and-pepper braids, and she gave Caroline a strangely knowing once-over before turning back to Klaus.

"You," Klaus responded, his normally expressive face not revealing a thing. Caroline looked back and forth between the two, finally deciding to break the tension.

"I see you know each other already, great! I'm Caroline, nice to meet you blah blah. Look if you don't mind skipping the pleasantries I felt a ghost hand on my arm and it's really cold and Klaus has probably killed half of the people here so…"

"I should have never let you go," the old woman said without a glance at Caroline which was, if you asked her, incredibly rude. The woman shook her head slowly, a condemnation. "The hurt and pain and death you've brought upon the world, Niklaus Mikaelson, is coming back to haunt you now. How _dare_ y-"

Klaus' hand wrapped around the woman's throat, choking off her words as he lifted her off the ground. His voice was shaking. "I'll not stand here and be vilified for your choice. If I find you're behind the threat to Caroline I'll-"

"Klaus, she's not behind the hunters, that's ridiculous. Look, I don't know what's between you two but put her down so we can figure this out and we can get out of here," Caroline pleaded, looking around nervously at the ghosts drifted up, starting to crowd close once more. A scream of thwarted rage that came from below seemed to turn Klaus' hand, and she watched the woman's feet touch the ground as Klaus let her go, a braid slipping from its coil around her head as she bent double to suck in breath. Caroline clambered out of the boat and crouched beside her, speaking softly.

"My friend Bonnie is in trouble. Klaus came to help me save her, and we really need safe passage through," rising as the old woman straightened, back a steel beam and gaze levelled at Caroline. "Look," she continued, " I don't quite understand what your history is with Klaus, and trust me I know just how awful he can be," she shot him a warning glance, "but you weren't wrong to let him go back then."

She barely heard Klaus' breath catch, so focused on the old woman whose eyes were darting back and forth in thought. The woman met Caroline's gaze and nodded imperceptibly, less of an agreement and more a decision made. The screams rose in pitch and volume, closer now, and Caroline twitched. She was _never_ coming back here if she could help it.

"I'm not sure you realize the choice you're making, but it's not my place to make it for you," the woman said with a shrug that felt too deliberate, light glinting off the silver in her hair. "It's all the same to me now, in the end. There's no God down here, not on the Other Side. There's only things that can kill you and things that stay away. " She paused, rubbing at her throat and turning her stare to Klaus. "Get out of here, and be one of the things that stays away. I'm letting you be for the child you once were, and for the Bennett witch, though it's sentimental foolishness." She turned her stare to Caroline, something of a challenge in her eyes, but one she thought Caroline was capable of meeting. "Your aura straddles the darkness better than any vampire I've seen. Best you keep it that way" She slashed her arm through the air, parting the ghosts gathered there like a curtain. The underground lake beckoned and Caroline quickly climbed back in the boat, sitting to balance the weight as it floated on water once more. She glanced back up at the woman, confused.

"I've been watching the hunters. I've brought you to them. Go save your friend," the old woman said in answer, not unkindly, and to a chorus of screams and the fog of gathering spirits, Klaus and Caroline passed back into the real world.

* * *

"Don't suppose you still have that old-school lighter on you?" Caroline muttered towards Klaus, shrouded in the pitch-black of the real world.

"No need, there's light up ahead." His voice was rough, angry. The old woman's words had undoubtedly enraged him.

Caroline opened her mouth to protest but followed his gaze, seeing the faintest glimmer of light emerge a few moments later. If she'd ever wondered by what degree Klaus' senses were better than the average vampire, she knew now.

The boat scraped along the bottom and they scrambled out, pulling the craft up out of the water. Caroline didn't think they'd return this way in a million years, but it seemed somehow wrong to just let something so ancient bob aimlessly in the lake.

The tunnel that snaked up towards the daylight was narrow and Caroline pushed ahead of Klaus, picking her way towards the arc of light. She strained her hearing for voices, heard none, and felt a pang of anxiety wondering if they'd been transported to the right place. Were they right to trust the old woman? What if they'd ended up in like Colorado or something? She was _not_ going back through the veil, at least not with Klaus. She shuddered.

Klaus laid the lightest of touches on the small of her back and she froze. His lips at her ear - "I can hear them. We're right on top of their camp. Move slowly."

The order grated at Caroline's nerves instinctively but she heeded it, inching forward and hunching lower and close to the wall. She listened again, picking up the sound of wind rustling through the trees - and there - a fire crackling, low voices in conversation. She fumbled at her chest, drawing a cocked eyebrow from Klaus, sighing in relief when she patted the vial still in her bra. She glared at Klaus with a finger to her mouth, though he hadn't spoken, and he pulled his lips in to hold back his growing smile.

She wasn't given enough time to be annoyed, his arm suddenly banded about her chest and his lips grazing her ear. "They're just ahead, love. Shall we give them a show?"

Her eyes flashed with the double meaning, traitorous mind conjuring memories he no doubt intended to stir up, his lips curving against her ear a confirmation. She pulled away and turned to him, her head cocked as if considering, idly biting at her lower lip. She smiled inwardly in triumph as his throat bobbed in a swallow. Two could play at this game.

"What do you have in mind?" she asked, her voice a tease, and his brows rose in delighted surprise.

"You have _no idea_ , Caroline," he said with a smirk and she hid her shudder and pulled her thoughts back with effort. What the hell was she doing flirting with Klaus while Bonnie was still in danger?

But you know what? She _knew_ they'd save Bonnie, the certainty of it spreading through her like a balm. There was something about having Klaus on her side that made her feel almost giddy. Reckless. The monster's call, loud and sure.

Klaus was eyeing her thoughts greedily as they spread across her face and she shook her head. It was a step up from an eye-roll or a scoff, he at least deserved that. "I'll follow your lead, Klaus."

He grinned like a child, all boundless joy until you thought about the violent reason behind it, and he flashed ahead, a blur in the dusk light. Caroline followed, hearing voices raised in alarm and the cock of crossbows, pained screams and shouted orders. God, how many of them _were_ there?

"Not hunters, not all of them," she heard Klaus yell back at her as blood sprayed across her shirt and a body slumped to the ground to reunite with its heart. She heard the click of a crossbow firing and ducked, rolling underneath the bolt, dry pine needles sticking to her knees. She came up with her hand around the neck of the shooter, his beard scratching her palms. "How can you tell?" she yelled back as she snapped her attacker's wrist, knocking the crossbow to the ground.

Klaus' voice held a smile as he answered, yelling over the snap of bone. "The mark died with Silas, but they still reek of magic."

Caroline sniffed tentatively, smelling only pine, fear and old sweat from the man she still held by the throat. She picked up the fallen crossbow and clubbed him, knocking him unconscious. Mr. Discerning Palate could handle killing the right ones, she wasn't taking any chances. She scanned the area, spotting a flicker of movement past the flames of the campfire and flashed over as a voice cut through the din.

"Caroline?" Bonnie's voice held a note of fear that struck the same into Caroline's heart.

"Bonnie?" Caroline's eyes found her, a tall man with a goatee, his skin crackling with the scent of magic - _oh_ \- held a blade to her friend's throat. He nodded, as if in greeting.

"Thanks for so graciously accepting the invite, Caroline. I'm Aidan. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Can you ask your plus one to stop killing all the fodder? It's so tiresome writing letters of condolence."

Caroline's eyes widened. What the hell? She knew they were after her and Klaus but she hadn't thought that the hunters would so blatantly disregard human life in pursuit of them. "The Mystic Falls Comedy Club is near the mall, Aidan. Why don't you take your act there instead?" She eyed Bonnie, who looked at her with wide eyes that spoke volumes. Bonnie was _never_ scared. Caroline felt rather than heard the violence dim, and Klaus appeared at her elbow, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

Aidan tightened his grip on the knife he held at Bonnie's throat and grinned wolfishly, seemingly ignoring Caroline's quip. "Ahh, the man of the hour. Just who I wanted to see. The Brotherhood extends its warmest greetings. We were surprised to find," he nodded at Caroline, smirking, "you so easily manipulatable." Aidan shrugged, his long hair sliding across his shoulders. "Guess everyone has a weakness in the end."

The brotherhood circled around them laughed, though the rest of the hunters' laughter held a note of strain as they surveyed the carnage.

"Oh I'm _so_ going to enjoy watching you die," Klaus responded, his smile beatific, though Caroline didn't miss his hands clasped behind his back in white-knuckled fists. She caught his eye and smiled, earning a scoff from the hunters, before pulling the vial from her bra, popping the cork, and tossing it in the air where it hung for a moment before emitting a blinding light. The hunters shielded their eyes, grimacing, but she'd closed her own, now barely catching the flash of motion from Klaus despite watching for it. He was so _fast._ Almost forgetting the ruse, she quickly flashed herself to one of the hunters, her fangs bared to the crowd as the light dimmed and their sight returned. Klaus stood, his feet crossed at the ankle in a casual pose, an arm wrapped around the throat of another one of the brotherhood. An owl hooted somewhere close by.

Aidan laughed as his vision cleared, still holding the knife edge to Bonnie's throat. "Well _that_ was underwhelming. You do still realize that I can kill her before you kill the rest of us, right? Not to mention the lifetime of insanity you're buying yourselves with their deaths." Bonnie grunted as Aidan adjusted his grip around her ribcage and Caroline narrowed her eyes in fury.

"Do you really give that little a crap about your friends?" she called out, trailing a finger across the hunter's neck as he tried to jerk his head away.

Aidan levelled his gaze at her. "This power play means nothing. Hunters pledge to kill vampires and each and every one of us is willing to sacrifice for a chance at ridding the world of your plague."

"I'm afraid we'll have to give you a rain-check on that chance, mate." Klaus spoke up in an almost jovial tone.

Aidan's eyes narrowed, flicking back and forth between Klaus and Caroline. She almost laughed at the suspicion clearly fueled by Klaus' brash overconfidence. There was something about outsmarting an enemy that tasted as sweet as blood on the tongue. She turned the hunter's face towards her with brute force, pupils dilating as she murmured lowly, catching Klaus doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

Aidan opened his mouth to say something, ask a question, make a threat, but he never got the words out.

A crossbow bolt flew high while a dagger flew low as the hunters turned their dilated eyes on Aidan. Bonnie ducked out of the lead hunter's loosened grasp as the crossbow bolt found its mark in his eye, his training unable to restrain a scream. Hunters tried to fight the compulsion and failed, turning on each other with brutal efficiency, and Caroline darted to Bonnie as bodies slumped lifelessly to the ground, the forest quiet except to vampire ears that paid witness to the sound of fading pulses echoed with Bonnie's shaking breath.

"That was...some rescue, Care," Bonnie said, then added with a wary eye towards him, "Klaus."

Caroline smiled, slinging an arm around Bonnie's shoulders. "Aww, come on you _had_ to know when you saw the vial. Finding a way to drain vervain with magic was totally your idea."

"So I guess I kinda saved myself then," Bonnie said with a smile, knocking her hip into Caroline's. "But seriously, thank you. I know they were using me as bait and I was relatively safe, but it was still...not the most fun experience I've ever had."

Klaus stood back, idly kicking at a hunter's corpse and rolling it over when Caroline beckoned to him while she spoke. "We actually traveled through the veil to find you. Long story, honestly, but I couldn't have done it without Klaus." In the most casual of gestures, she slid her arm through the crook of Klaus' elbow, pulling him close. He stood rigid for a moment before relaxing into her grip, his brows raised and a small smile dancing across his face. He looked so pleased with himself that Bonnie let out a choked, incredulous laugh.

"It was Caroline's idea to get them to kill themselves. Inspired, really," he said after a moment.

Bonnie glanced at Caroline, her eyes clearly asking a question Caroline wasn't sure of the answer to, but she was distracted by her canines aching with the smell of blood. She knew from Bonnie's shudder that she wore her monster's face. Caroline wondered if her friend would ever get over her being a vampire.

Bonnie looked away, though her voice was kind. Her hand touched her wrist where the hunter's bracelet still lay. "I...I think I'm good, Care. I'm gonna go home, figure out how to de-spell this dampener, take a crazy long shower and go to bed. Her eyes flickered between Caroline and Klaus.

"I-" Caroline cut off, confused and distracted, her head spinning with the adrenaline of the fight and the still-warm blood that wet the ground, pine needles dyed a dark red.

"She'll be fine, love," Klaus said, his arm still linked in hers, and she turned to face him, surprised and frustrated at her lack of control. He smelled of the forest and metal and his hands were coated to the elbow in hunter's blood. She wanted to lick it off. She tried to think of reasons why she shouldn't.

The tension was thick as they found their way back to the road, where they broke into one of the hunter's cars. There was something hilariously pedestrian about riding in a car, covered in blood, the world's most dangerous creature lounging in the back seat, legs stretched out as he stared out the window. Caroline managed to remove Bonnie's dampener in time for her to wipe the car clean with magic, and they ditched it in a culvert just outside Bonnie's neighborhood, walking Bonnie to her door where she gave a small half-smile while her eyes screamed questions at Caroline. She shrugged in answer, giving her own half-smile, and Bonnie tilted her head in an odd sort of gesture, closing the door with a "text me tomorrow, Care," her tone almost hilariously ominous.

Klaus and Caroline walked slowly back towards her own house, cutting through the woods, both of them unconsciously trying to stretch out the moment. She realized she wasn't ready for Klaus to leave, tugging on the hem of her shirt where the blood had started to dry, crackling it off in a fine dust. Her veins thrummed and she still rode the monster's high, resurging to life now that they were alone. Klaus sensed the shift, his eyes darkening and darting to her lips, but he held himself back, his hands clutched loosely behind his back. Caroline knew it was her choice, and tried to think of reasons why she shouldn't make it.

"So headed back to New Orleans drama, then?" She said lightly, glancing sideways at him through lowered lashes.

His jaw clenched and she regretted asking. "I'll be done there soon. I was brought to New Orleans on false pretenses," he glanced at her, his eyes shining with malice. "Just have a few more left to kill."

Caroline wanted to roll her eyes but realized the absurdity of it. Somehow she'd gotten to the point where murder was just part of Klaus' identity to her. Like dimples. Or his hilariously professorial bent when he was spouting off knowledge. Maybe it was the bloodlust still singing in her veins, but she was having a hard time caring that people would die at his hands, and she tried to think of reasons why she should run.

"Your vampire face is exquisite, Caroline," he said out of the blue, turning to lift a hand to trace where the veins once flowed beneath her eyes, and his touch is what broke her. She grabbed his hand almost violently, and slowly, with the most careful deliberation and holding his gaze, she dragged his hand across her lips, her tongue snaking out to taste the blood on his skin. The wind stirred through the trees, lights from a far off house bright in the dry air.

"Caroline…" Klaus said her name as if it was a warning.

Caroline felt like she was drugged, lust and adrenaline swirling together in a haze. She tried to pull herself back, tried to say something to distract, but she ended up asking for her own sort of confession from him. "Do you ever think about it? About us?"

"Are you asking if I ever think of our time in the woods?" At Caroline's small nod, his hand lowered to trace her lip, tugging at it gently. "Do I think about your hair wrapped around my fists, your voice crying out, my tongue curling inside you?" His voice held a tremor, barely holding himself back. "Do I think about how you brought me to my knees with a promise I curse every day for keeping?"

It was that unexpected statement that had her surging up, lips meeting tongue and teeth, messy and feral with the taste of blood underpinning it all. A gust of wind rattled the leaves in the trees and she almost broke the kiss to laugh. Because here they were, in a Mystic Falls forest, and you know what? Maybe _this_ was _their thing._


End file.
